Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. Would Mr. Nedham be responsible that, if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free. [ Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States , 1787; The Works of John Adams , edited by Charles Francis Adams. 10 vols. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1850-56.]
The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America. It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.
This proud potentate, who loves to rule and domineer over her enemy, reason, has established in man a second nature in order to show her wide-spread influence. She makes men happy and miserable, sound and sick, rich and poor; she obliges reason to believe, doubt and deny; she dulls the senses, or sharpens them; she has her fools and wise; and nothing vexes us more than to see that she fills her votaries with a satisfaction far more full and entire than does reason. Those whose imagination is active feel greater complacency than the truly wise can reasonably allow themselves to feel. They look down on other men as from the height of empire, they argue with assurance and confidence, others with diffidence and fear, and this gaiety of countenance often gives the former an advantage in the minds of their hearers; such favour do the imaginary wise find from judges like-minded. Imagination cannot make fools wise, but it makes them content, and so triumphs over reason, which can only make its friends miserable; the one covers them with glory, the other with shame.
The rich and poor have something in common. They both under-consume. [Conversation with Dawn K. Brohawn about Binary Economics, September 2012.]
It is a great shame to a man to have a poor heart and a rich purse.
Greater is he who lends than he who gives, and greater still is he who lends, and with the loan, helps the poor man to help himself. [From Shabbat 63a, “There Shall be no Poor,” Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, New York, 1965, p. 21.]
Wherever there is cupidity, there the blessing of the Gospel cannot rest. The actual poor, therefore, may altogether fail to be objects of that blessing, the actual rich may be the objects of it in the highest degree.
Sympathy is the solace of the poor, but for the rich there is consolation.
The lottery is a tax on poor people and on people who can’t do math. Rich people and smart people would be in the line if the lottery were a real wealth-building tool, but the truth is that the lottery is a rip-off instituted by our government. This is not a moral position; it is a mathematical, statistical fact. Studies show that the zip codes that spend four times what anyone else does on lottery tickets are those in lower-income parts of town. The lottery, or gambling of any kind, offers false hope, not a ticket out.
I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kept himself in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure Lucie that her husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the general body of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly, and brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimes her husband himself sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor's hand), but she was not permitted to write to him: for, among the many wild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanent connections abroad.
It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.
_Instructions of Ali Ibn-abi Talib, the first Khalif to his son_--"My son, fear God both secretly and openly; speak the truth, whether you be calm or angry; be economical, whether you be poor or rich; be just to friend and foe; be resigned alike in times of adversity and prosperity. My son, he who sees his own faults has no time to see the faults of others; he who is satisfied with the allotments of Providence does not regret the past; he who unsheaths the sword of aggression will be killed by it; he who digs a pit for his brother will fall into it; he who forgets his own sin makes much of the sin of another; he who takes to evil ways will be despised; he who commits excesses will be known to do them; he who associates with the base will be subject to constant suspicion; he who remembers death will be content with little in this world; he who boasts of his sins before men, God will bring him to shame."
Si ad naturam vivas, nunquam eris pauper; si ad opinionem, nunquam dives=--If you live according to the dictates of Nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of men, you never will be rich.
[W]e may not say to the poor: “You have a right to fight the rich merely because they are rich and in order to make yourselves less poor.” We may say: “You have a right to fight to prevent the conditions of your life becoming inhuman,” but we may not say, “You have a right to fight merely because you desire to have more and your opponent to have less.” [“The Faith and Capitalism,” Essays of a Catholic . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1992, p. 224.]
What was my morning's thought, at night's the same; / The poor and rich but differ in the name. / Content's the greatest bliss we can procure / Frae 'boon the lift; without it kings are poor.
He is the rich man in whom the people are rich, and he is the poor man in whom the people are poor; and how to give access to the masterpieces of art and nature is the problem of civilisation.
Homme chiche jamais riche=--A niggardly man is always poor.
Is the Beautiful without us, or is it not rather within us? What we call sweet and bitter is our own sweetness, our own bitterness, for nothing can be sweet or bitter without us. Is it not the same with the Beautiful? The world is like a rich mine, full of precious ore, but each man has to assay the ore for himself, before he knows what is gold and what is not. What, then, is the touchstone by which we assay the Beautiful? We have a touchstone for discovering the good. Whatever is unselfish is good. But--though nothing can be beautiful, except what is in some sense or other good, not everything that is good is also beautiful. What, then, is that something which, added to the good, makes it beautiful? It is a great mystery. It is so to us as it was to Plato. We must have gazed on the Beautiful in the dreams of childhood, or, it may be, in a former life, and now we look for it everywhere, but we can never find it,--never at least in all its brightness and fulness again, never as we remember it once as the vision of a half-forgotten dream. Nor do we all remember the same ideal--some poor creatures remember none at all.... The ideal, therefore, of what is beautiful is within us, that is all we know; how it came there we shall never know. It is certainly not of this life, else we could define it; but it underlies this life, else we could not feel it. Sometimes it meets us like a smile of Nature, sometimes like a glance of God; and if anything proves that there is a great past, and a great future, a Beyond, a higher world, a hidden life, it is our faith in the Beautiful.
History will judge societies and governments \x97 and their institutions \x97 not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.
Satan now is wiser than of yore, / And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob.
Greater is he who lends than he who gives, and greater still is he who lends, and with the loan, helps the poor man to help himself. [Quoted in The Way of the Upright: A Jewish View of Economic Justice, Rabbi Richard Hirsh, 1973, p. 106.]
Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development. One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed. [ Populorum Progressio , Section 33, 1967.]
Esto, ut nunc multi, dives tibi, pauper amicis=--Be, as many now are, rich to yourself, poor to your friends.
To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.
Facinus audax incipit, / Qui cum opulento pauper homine c?pit rem habere aut negotium=--The poor man who enters into partnership with a rich makes a risky venture.
Die Armen mussen tanzen wie die Reichen pfeifen=--The poor must dance as the rich pipe.
The Reformation has been called in a biting epigram “a rising of the rich against the poor. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 109.]
The fame of the rich man dies with him; the fame of the treasure, and not of the man who possessed it, remains. Far greater is the glory of the virtue of mortals than that of their riches. How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting. How many were those who lived in scarcity of worldly goods in order to grow rich in virtue; and as far as virtue exceeds wealth, even in the same degree the desire of the poor man proved more fruitful than that of the rich man. {9} Dost thou not see that wealth in itself confers no honour on him who amasses it, which shall last when he is dead, as does knowledge?--knowledge which shall always bear witness like a clarion to its creator, since knowledge is the daughter of its creator, and not the stepdaughter, like wealth.
The poorer life or the rich one are but the larger or smaller (very little smaller) letters in which we write the apophthegms and golden sayings of life.
God helps them that help themselves.
How thankful we ought to be every minute of our existence to Him who gives us all richly to enjoy. How little one has deserved this happy life, much less than many poor sufferers to whom life is a burden and a hard and bitter trial. But then, how much greater the claims on us; how much more sacred the duty never to trifle, never to waste time and power, never to compromise, but to live in all things, small and great, to the praise and glory of God, to have God always present with us, and to be ready to follow His voice, and His voice only. Has our prosperity taught us to meet adversity when it comes? I often tremble, but then I commit all to God, and I say, 'Have mercy upon me, miserable sinner.'
Charity gives itself rich; covetousness hoards itself poor.
The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
God help the rich folk, for the poor can beg.
Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. [Uncertain source.]
Youth is not rich in time; it may be, poor; part with it, as with money, sparing; pay no moment but in purchase of its worth; and what its worth ask death-beds, they can tell.
God helps them that themselves.
The poor lack money. They lack money because they do not know the secret of productive wealth. They know it is possible to be old, unemployed, uneducated, lazy — even halt, deaf, dumb, and blind—and still be excessively rich. But you have to be in on the secret, and the poor by definition are not.
The rich are always advising the poor; but the poor seldom venture to return the compliment.
How many observe Christ's Birth-day! how few his Precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.
Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.
He that holds fast the golden mean, And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
Whether he be rich or whether he be poor, if he= (a man), =have a good heart, he shall at all times rejoice in a cheerful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watchmen that sit above upon a tower on high.
Reckon what is in a man, not what is on him, if you would know whether he is rich or poor.
The man of consequence and fashion shall richly repay a deed of kindness with a nod and a smile, or a hearty shake of the hand; while a poor fellow labours under a sense of gratitude, which, like copper coin, though it loads the bearer, is yet of small account in the currency and commerce of the world.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
No man is rich whose expenditures exceed his means; and no one is poor whose incomings exceed his outgoings.
There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.
The beloved of the Almighty are the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich.
Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Honesty is the poor man's pork and the rich man's pudding.
It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people.
Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their neighbours, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder into common; this common land they assigned to such of the citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury. But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law that no person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of ground. This act for some time checked the avarice of the richer, and was of great assistance to the poorer people, who retained under it their respective proportions of ground, as they had been formerly rented by them. Afterwards the rich men of the neighbourhood contrived to get these lands again into their possession, under other people’s names, and at last would not stick to claim most of them publicly in their own. The poor, who were thus deprived of their farms, were no longer either ready, as they had formerly been, to serve in war or careful in the education of their children; insomuch that in a short time there were comparatively few freemen remaining in all Italy, which swarmed with workhouses full of foreign-born slaves. These the rich men employed in cultivating their ground of which they dispossessed the citizens. [“Tiberius Gracchus,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , Translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 997).]
With parsimony a little is sufficient, and without it nothing is sufficient, whereas frugality makes a poor man rich.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
The rich are invited to marry by that fortune which they do not want, and the poor have no inducement but that beauty which they do not feel.
The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow; he may be sickly to-day and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness to-day, to-morrow he may be distressed--but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God. If He loved me yesterday, He loves me to-day. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord. Let prospects be blighted; let hopes be blasted; let joy be withered; let mildews destroy everything; I have lost nothing of what I have in God. He is "my strong habitation whereunto I can continually resort." I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God. In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet habitation.
For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centred upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honourable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and envy of the rich. There did not remain above seven hundred of the old Spartan families, of which, perhaps, one hundred might have estate in land, the rest were destitute alike of wealth and of honour, were tardy and unperforming in the defense of their country against its enemies abroad, and eagerly watched the opportunity for change and revolution at home. [“Agis,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , Translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 962).
Little strokes fell great oaks.
Il n'est orgueil que de pauvre enrichi=--There is no pride like that of a poor man who has become rich.
The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and laws. Despotism may for a time retard the concentration; democracy, allowing the most freedom, accelerates it. The relative equality of Americans before 1776 has been overwhelmed by a thousand forms of physical, mental and economic differentiation, so that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is now greater than at any time since Imperial plutocratic Rome. In progressive societies the concentration may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty. [ The Lessons of History , Simon and Shuster, 1968, p. 55.]
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence .… [ The Works of John Adams , “A Defense of the Constitutions of Government in the United States of America,” by Charles Francis Adams, Vol. IX, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, pp. 376-377.]