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“God kills thy comforts from no other design but to kill thy corruptions; wants are ordained to kill wantonness, poverty is appointed to kill pride, reproaches are permitted to destroy ambition.”
John Flavel (1627–1691) said by 1691 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing depicts better the poverty of human nature than to see men, placed as the leaders of nations, be preoccupied only with their own prestige and their own personal interest.”
Afrikan Spir (1837–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this base world, full of poverty and misery, for the first time I thought a ray of sunshine had shone on my life. But alas, it was not a sunbeam, rather it was only a transient beam, a shooting star, which appeared to me in the likeness of a woman or an angel.”
Sadegh Hedayat (1902–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great doctors all got their education off dirt pavements and poverty — not marble floors and foundations.”
Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Coal in truth stands not beside, but entirely above, all other commodities. It is the material source of the energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of earlier times.”
William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poverty is a state of mind.”
Rahul Gandhi (born 1970) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2013. Rahul Gandhi's 'poverty is a state of mind' remark draws flak, NDTV, NDTV Rahul Gandhi
Also quoted by: English proverb (english)
“On what must an elite be founded? a) Purity of soul. b) Capacity of work and creativity. c) Bravery. d) Tough living and permanent warring against difficulties facing the nation. e) Poverty, namely voluntary renunciation of amassing a fortune. f) Faith in God. g) Love.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The frontier will nevertheless survive in the attitudes a few of us inherited from it. One of those attitudes—to me a beatitude—is the conviction that the past matters, that history weighs on us and refuses to be forgotten by us, and that the worst poverty women—or men—can suffer is to be bereft of their past.”
Shirley Abbott (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What we celebrate today is not a victory of party or of individuals. What we celebrate is a beginning as well as an end; a change as well as a restoration. A beginning to end poverty, and misery; a beginning to end ignorance and hopelessness; and a beginning to restore all that is good, beautiful and sublime in our lives as one people under God.”
Bukola Saraki (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am determined to grow Nigeria out of poverty”
Bukola Saraki (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poverty makes social differences equal.”
Pedro Muñoz Seca (1879–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To how much lying, extravagance, hypocrisy and servilism does not the fear of ridicule lead? Human respect makes us cowards and slaves. It may deter from evil, but much oftener it drives to baseness. “We are too much afraid,” said Cato, “of death, exile and poverty.”
John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Showing poverty is such a large part of my work because another thing that I am finding is that for me personally, doing this work helps me in trying to come to grips with my own upbringing and all that occurred during that time. Basically, this work to me is a sort of time for reflection, a pseudo inventory of "this is your life," a way to try to accept the concept of what was so inevitable.”
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us… First, China doesn't export Revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches, what more is there to be said?”
Xi Jinping (born 1953) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "China's Xi named to oversee military, a step closer to presidency" in International Business Times (18 October 2010).
“Everyone knew that democracy-direct rule by all the people-required such spartan, self-denying virtue on the part of all the people that it was likely to survive only where poverty made upright behavior necessary for the perpetuation of the race.”
Bernard Bailyn (1922–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Relentlessly feeding on poverty and economic dislocation, a New World Order was taking shape.”
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Global poverty is an "input" on the supply side; the global economic system feeds on cheap labor.”
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Both Hindu, as well as Islamic fundamentalism, feed on the poverty of the masses.”
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philosophy is like a mother who gave birth to and endowed all the other sciences. Therefore, one should not scorn her in her nakedness and poverty, but should hope, rather, that part of her Don Quixote ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into philistinism.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (28 September 1932), p. 106
“There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution which idealism palms off as the totality of being.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve them.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not believe in God," I told him. "For if there is a God, then tell me, Uncle, why is there poverty and baldness? Why do some men go through life immune to a thousand mortal enemies of the race, while others get a migraine that lasts for weeks? Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”
Woody Allen (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The oil is a gift bestowed by God on the Arab nation, to use after centuries of poverty, backwardness and servitude — in raising its living standards, developing its economic, social and cultural conditions, and building up its own power to meet the challenges and conspiracies besetting it.”
Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) first seen 1869 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Farm" (1869), anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches (1872)
“None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Help for the Starving, Pt. III (January 1892)
“It takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how long you last.”
P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual.”
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To one ineradicable prejudice I freely confess, and that is a prejudice against poverty. I never have anything to do, if it is possible, with anyone who is in financial difficulties…Such persons do not excite my compassion; they excite my aversion…The blame, so far as my experience runs, always lies within.”
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free, All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty. This, only this, the rigid Law persues, This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1738 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: London: A Poem (1738), lines 158–161
“This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1738 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: London: A Poem (1738), lines 176–177
“Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits—the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All fathers and mothers, in all societies, want their children to be educated, and live free from poverty and violence. No people on Earth yearn to be oppressed, or aspire to servitude, or eagerly await the midnight knock of the secret police.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I grew up in Aston, a neighborhood in Birmingham, right at the poverty line. I always felt shitty and intimidated by everyone. So my whole thing was to act crazy and make people laugh so they wouldn't jump on me.”
Ozzy Osbourne (1948–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't ask God to cure cancer & world poverty. He's too busy finding you a parking space & fixing the weather for your barbecue.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (20 July 2013)
“Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1772 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), p. 20
“[W]e hold, that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition and intrigue.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 3
“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the world at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poverty is the stepmother of genius.”
Josh Billings (1818–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure nobody can dispute mine. I own myself of the Company of Beggars; and I make one at their Weekly Festivals at St. Giles's. I have a small Yearly Salary for my Catches, and am welcome to a Dinner there whenever I please, which is more than most Poets can say.”
John Gay (1685–1732) said by 1732 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I invite even the school of violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a trial. It will not fail through its inherent weakness. It may fail because of poverty of response. Then will be one time for real danger. The high-souled men, who are unable to suffer national humiliation any longer, will want to vent their wrath. They will take to violence.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If by abundance you mean everyone having plenty to eat and drink and to clothe himself with, enough to keep his mind trained and educated, I should be satisfied. But I should not like to pack more stuffs in my belly than I can digest and more things than I can ever usefully use. But neither do I want poverty, penury, misery, dirt and dust in India.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Harijan, (2 December 1938), p. 2
“The hatefulness of a hated person is "real"—in hatred you see men as they are; you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a subjective haze concealing a "real" core of sexual appetite or economic association. Wars and poverty are "really" horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments.”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah, the poverty, the shortness the disappointment of human joy! For in reality car en realite, what is the duration of the supreme moment of love? It is nothing, an instant, a second perhaps. A second of ecstasy, and after that- dust, ashes, nothingness.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source