Poor People Quotes

“Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.”
― Glen Cook, Water Sleeps

“Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night

“The difference between rich and poor", said Francie, "is that the poor do everything with thier own hands and the rich hire hands to do things.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“What is honour, my dear, when you have nothing to eat?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Remembrance of things past is just for the rich. For the poor it only marks the faint traces on the path to death.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“[W]hat is always overlooked is that although the poor want to be rich, it does not follow that they either like the rich or that they in any way want to emulate their characters which, in fact, they despise. Both the poor and the rich have always found precisely the same grounds on which to complain about each other. Each feels the other has no manners, is disloyal, corrupt, insensitive - and has never put in an honest day's work in its life.”
― Elaine Dundy, Elvis and Gladys

“no one asks poor people if they want war.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“(Regarding check-cashing places):

It's hitting me how poor this really is: I'm standing in a long line to pay someone to give me my pay. So, technically, they get paid before I do, and it's my damn check.”
― Angela Nissel, The Broke Diaries: The Completely True and Hilarious Misadventures of a Good Girl Gone Broke

“Kushdo qofte, edhe njeriu i vogel, nga ata qe nuk e turbullojne ujin, qe askujt s'i bien me qafe, qe rrojne me friken e perendise, por edhe me friken per veten, shkojne me mendjen te mos ngacmojne njeri se keshtu as ate vete nuk do ta ngacmojne, do ta lene te qete ne hallet e tij, nuk deshiron qe te tjeret te futin hundet ne jeten e perditshme qe ben, nuk ia ka enda te flasin ne e ka te ri apo te vjeter jelekun, ne i ka te reja apo me mballoma çizmet, nuk ia ka enda te marrin vesh te tjeret ç'eshte duke ngrene, çfare po shkruan?... E ç'te keqe paska, moj zemer, qe une, kur shoh xhadene te prishur, eci ne maje te gishtave, shkel me kujdes per te ruajtur çizmet? Pse duhet shkruar per tjetrin qe ndonjehere nuk ka para as per te pire nje gote çaj? Sikur qenka e thene dhe e vulosur qe njerezit, te gjithe sa jane, patjeter duhet te pine çaj. Po pse e udhes qenka te shohesh ne gojen e tjetrit per te ditur ç'cope eshte duke pertypur? A fyhet njeriu keshtu? Jo, shpirti im! Perse u dashka fyer tjetri kur ai s'te ngacmon?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Jo, they have a baby grand piano, but no one in the family plays. They have shelves of books they've never read, and the tension between the couples was so thick it nearly choked us."
"Let me tell you something 'bout those rich Uptown folk," said Cokie. "They got everything that money can buy, their bank accounts are fat, but they ain't happy. They ain't ever gone be happy. You know why? They soul broke. And money can't fix that, no sir. My friend Bix was poor. Lord, he had to blow that trumpet ten hours a day just to put a little taste in the pot. Died poor, too. You saw him, Jo, with that plate on his chest. But that man wasn't soul broke.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Out of the Easy

“Money is not the root of all evil. Poverty of the mind is.”
― John Joclebs Bassey, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“The rich don’t have to kill to eat. They “employ” people, as they call it. The rich don’t do evil themselves. They pay. People do all they can to please them, and everybody’s happy. They have beautiful women, the poor have ugly ones. Clothing aside, they’re the product of centuries. Easy to look at, well fed, well washed. After all these years, life can boast no greater accomplishment. It’s no use trying, we slide, we skid, we fall back into the alcohol that preserves the living and the dead, we get nowhere. It’s been proved. After all these centuries of watching our domestic animals coming into the world, laboring and dying before our eyes without anything more unusual ever happening to them either than taking up the same insipid fiasco where so many other animals had left off, we should have caught on. Endless waves of useless beings keep rising from deep down in the ages to die in front of our noses, and yet here we stay, hoping for something …”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

“If you want to get to the heart of the dope problem, legalize it . . . [Prohibition is] a law, in operation, that can only be used against the poor.”
― James Baldwin

“Adaletsizliğin acımasız sonucu, temelde iklim değişikliğine neden olacak hiçbir şey yapmayan yoksulların, bundan en çok acı çekecek kesim olmaları.”
― Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, The New Climate War, The Rare Metals War 3 Books Collection Set

“The poor cannot fast, because he cannot abstain from the food he cannot afford.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“The rich hear about starvation.
The poor can write a novel about it.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“I don't believe the poor are lazy, it's just that sometimes people are tied down by fate and the unawareness to utilize the power of prayer.”
― Ojingiri Hannah

“They spoke through no words. They felt the man's pain. It was an ethereal dialogue taking place between two proletariats.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“A home without fruits is a poor home.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“Taxi Driver"
There is something strangely liberating
about being just a taxi driver…
The secret lies in the “just”!
Because you’re just a taxi driver,
nobody really sees you…
But you see, hear, and feel
the absurdities, the shallowness,
the beauty, the sorrow,
the joy, the heartbreak of every rider!
Most treat you with half or totally fake respect,
because you’re just a taxi driver…
But they leave you alone
They don’t find justifications
or create crises
to take over your seat…
In fact, they want you to be exactly in that seat!
After all, they only ride with you
because - at least for that time –
they don’t wish to occupy your seat…
Yet, like every sense of liberation,
Being a taxi driver, is a liberation
kneaded with a strange sadness and disappointment
when you realize that the motherfuckers
only leave you alone
when you run away from them
and occupy a seat that they don’t desire
during the their ride ….

[Original poem published in Arabic on June 21, 2923 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“Budget airlines are the Greyhound busses of the skies.”
― Steven Magee

“The best way to help the poor is to help them get rich.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“Man, people don' need no monster to make 'em do evil-hearted shit. All it take is a brown face, or somebody wearin' old tore-up clothes.”
― N.K. Jemisin, How Long 'til Black Future Month?

“Poverty is another death, poverty is being dead while living, and human beings, who are always afraid of death, are also afraid of the poor, ignore them, pass by them silently, and immediately run away!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“poverty makes man humble but his true character reveals when he becomes rich”
― Prince El Fati

“The rich won't win. They are pampered blokes. We have daily struggles. They don't even know what struggle is in life. We face adversities on a daily basis. They lead a life of luxury. We have to make choices for our survival. They don't know that they have to make any kind of choices. We have to take care of our families. They don't know what they want. We have to fight on a daily basis to earn our pennies. They squander their money on stupid luxuries. We fight for survival. They give a damn to us and the world.
~ Call me the Professor or Poet or Avijeet or Musafir”
― Avijeet Das

“Finding god in the poor is easy. Divinity doesn’t dwell in the rich. It can’t stand them.”
― Myriam Gurba

“Poverty in America is actively denied by the way we define it: as falling below an arbitrary income line at a single moment in time. The official poverty line makes poverty looks like a regrettable anomaly that can be explained away by poor decisions, individual behavior, and cultural pathology. In fact, poverty is an often-temporary state experienced cyclically by a huge number of people from wildly different backgrounds displaying a nearly infinite range of behaviors.”
― Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

“Poor souls never get to see a better day.”
― Jordan Hoechlin

“A rich man is poor when he acts like a poor man.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov