Poor Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Think they work you too hard? Think of poor Ali Sard. He has to mow grass in his uncle's backyard and its quick growing grass and it grows as he mows it the faster he mows it the faster he grows it. And all that his stingy old uncle will pay for his shoving mower around the hay is piffulous pay of two dooklas a day. And Ali can't live on such piffulous pay!

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both.

William Shakespeare

YOUR INFLUENCE ON US ALL, FROM 1939 ON, CANNOT BE MEASURED. I CAN ONLY SAY I REMEMBER, WARMLY, YOUR MANY KINDNESSES TO ME WHEN I WAS 19–20–21 YEARS OLD. THAT YOUNG MAN BASKED IN YOUR LIGHT AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THE HELP YOU OFFERED WHEN I WAS SO POOR & NEEDFUL!

Oligarchy: A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, "I'm a free man in here" - he tapped his forehead - "and you're all right.

A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.

William Shakespeare

In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Benjamin Franklin

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three... The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id.

Behold! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it from me. I wish to spread it and bestow it, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Dreams are the subtle Dower
That make us rich an Hour —
Then fling us poor
Out of the purple Door...

Emily Dickinson

Alas, how can the poor souls live in concord when you preachers sow amongst them in your sermons debate and discord? They look to you for light and you bring them darkness. Amend these crimes, I exhort you, and set forth God's word truly, both by true preaching and giving a good example, or else, I, whom God has appointed his vicar and high minister here, will see these divisions extinct, and these enormities corrected...

Henry VIII of England

When any poor man begged of them they would tell him, "Go with God's curse, for if He loved you as He loves me, He would have provided for you."

Sickness is poor-spirited, and cannot serve anyone; it must husband its resources to live. But health or fullness answers its own ends, and has to spare, runs over, and inundates the neighborhoods and creeks of other men's necessities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the poor only had profiles there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty

I have had no regular disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come. Nor do I converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay; but anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything. And if anyone says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an untruth.

It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.

Our humanity were a poor thing but for the divinity that stirs within us.

We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.

I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!

Albert Einstein

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

William Shakespeare

It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.

Albert Einstein

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book — it makes a very poor doorstop.

Alfred Hitchcock