Quotes & Sayings About Poor Children's

This flirtation with isolationism in the Republican party is over. It's giving way to a more muscular foreign policy than I've been advocating. But I'm also advocating building up others. Build a small schoolhouse in Afghanistan to help a poor young girl have a say about her children will destroy the ideology more than a bomb. — Rand Paul

Most poor people are not on welfare ... I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change beds you slept in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work every day ... — Jesse Jackson

I can't help but think that it's an unfortunate custom to name children after people who come to sticky ends. Even if they are fictional characters, it doesn't bode well for the poor things. There are too many Judes and Tesses and Clarissas and Cordelias around. If we must name our children after literary figures then we should search out happy ones, although it's true they are much harder to find. — Kate Atkinson

When I travel around the world, I see that poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent? The Earth can produce enough for everyone's need. But not enough for everyone's greed. — Philip Wollen

To every class we have a school assign'd,
Rules for all ranks, and food for every mind:
Yet one there is, that small regard to rule
Or study pays, and still is deem'd a school;
That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits,
And awes some thirty infants as she knits;
Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay
Some trifling price for freedom through the day.
At this good matron's hut the children meet,
Who thus becomes the mother of the street. — George Crabbe

A mother can have no secrets in a settler's hut but she cannot so much as break wind and all her children must hear what she has done but now she were far away from Fifteen Mile Creek and no longer could I guess her life. I were told she took laundry and perhaps she did but I am sure she only did what she must do. She had a mother and father and brothers and sisters but in the end she were a poor widow and she had 7 children and all of them was alarmed and unsettled by their lives. — Peter Carey

I don't think child care is ever going to be much of a federal effort. Just like education. Six or 7 percent - that's all I want from the government. Pay that piece of it for poor or developmentally disabled children. — Edward Zigler

She made a creche outside the Inn. The natives thought it was wonderful, and Sister Honey was gratified by their numbers.
Why have the devils with wings come to mock at the poor baby?' asked the children, pointing to the angels.
The baby is the Number One Lord Jesus Christ,' Ayah told them.
But he hasn't any clothes on! Aren't they going to give Him anything? Not a little red robe? Not a bit of melted butter?'
This is His Mother,' said Ayah, showing them the little porcelain Virgin in blue and white and pink. 'He is her child.'
That isn't true,' said the women, measuring the baby with their eyes. 'He's too big to be possible. Probably He's a dragon, an evil spirit in the shape of a child, and presently He'll eat up the woman. — Rumer Godden

America cut back on "welfare" from the 1970s onward. Family income support fell from 0.4 percent of GDP in 1970 to under 0.2 percent in 2010.16 Welfare still looms large in the public's imagination, but it plays little role in the budget and the deficit. It's been a long time since America was generous to its poor families with children! The — Jeffrey D. Sachs

The places where poor children face the worst odds include some - but not all - of the nation's largest urban areas, like Atlanta; Chicago; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; Orlando, West Palm Beach and Tampa in Florida; Austin, Tex.; the Bronx; and the parts of Manhattan with low-income neighborhoods. — Anonymous

Many of us regard ourselves as mildly liberal or centrist politically, voice fairly pleasant sentiments about our poor children, contribute money to send poor kids to summer camp, feel benevolent. We're not nazis; we're nice people. We read sophisticated books. We go to church. We go to synagogue. Meanwhile, we put other people's children into an economic and environmental death zone. We make it hard for them to get out. We strip the place bare of amenities. And we sit back and say to ourselves, Well, I hope that they don't kill each other off. But if they do, it's not my fault. — Jonathan Kozol

In his heart there is the secret of renewal for all, the power that will finally establish the truth on earth, and all will be holy and will love one another, and there will be neither rich nor poor, neither exalted nor humiliated, but all will be the like the children of God, and the true kingdom of Christ will come.' That was the dream in Alyosha's heart." (Dostoyevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov: The Elders") — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Behind the high-rises are the crumbling, crowded buildings where the lower-income people live. No answer has been found to their housing problems because the real estate people say there's not enough profit in building homes for them. And beyond them are the middle-income people, who can't make it to the high-rises and can't stay where they are because the schools are inadequate, the poor are pushing toward them, and nothing is being done about their problems, so they move to the suburbs.
When their children grow up and they retire, maybe then they can move to a lake front high-rise. — Mike Royko

The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great; he dreams some more, and he feels that he is tender. From the egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the countless enjoyments nature offers, gives, and gives lavishly to open souls and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money. All hatred leaves his heart as all light enters his mind. And is he unhappy? No. The poverty of a young man is never miserable. — Victor Hugo

You take a poor black child. Give him a good education, tell him he's somebody, that God didn't create junk when he created him, and that black child will create his own affirmative action. — J. C. Watts

Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock. — Mike Huckabee

Our ministry also supports orphanages in the U.S. and overseas, thousands of poor children in Latin America, drug centers for addicted men, and a drug center in Israel. — David Wilkerson

It's not funny at all that we do all that advertising for children. Why is advertising for children allowed? What possible reason can there be for having those effing adverts on TV for all this crap that's made by poor people in poor countries that we sell our children who have too much? — Emma Thompson

He's weeping, his face dissolving in his hands. It's exhausting. People hiding behind the asteroid, like it's an excuse for poor conduct, for miserable and desperate and selfish behavior, everybody ducking in its comet-tail like children in mommy's skirts. — Ben H. Winters

I came from a very poor background. I came from children's homes; I came from a violent family, and against all the odds, I succeeded. — DeObia Oparei

The whole point is I'm trying to get you to see-to get you out of this malaise of thinking that Jesus and the disciples were poor and then relating that to you thinking that you, as a child of God, have to follow Jesus. The Bible says that He has left us an example that we should follow His steps. That's the reason why I drive a Rolls Royce. I'm following Jesus' steps. — Frederick K. C. Price

And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sexsin?"
He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.
Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
It's too heavy," I said.
Yes," he said, "and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you. — Corrie Ten Boom

The child in Bethlehem would grow up to be a friend of sinners, not a friend of Rome. He would spend his life with the ordinary and the unimpressive. He would pay deep attention to lepers and cripples, to the blind and the beggar, to prostitutes and fishermen, to women and children. He would announce the availability of a kingdom different from Herod's, a kingdom where blessing - of full value and worth with God - was now conferred on the poor in spirit and the meek and the persecuted. — John Ortberg

The Poor Children

Take heed of this small child of earth;
He is great; he hath in him God most high.
Children before their fleshly birth
Are lights alive in the blue sky.

In our light bitter world of wrong
They come; God gives us them awhile.
His speech is in their stammering tongue,
And his forgiveness in their smile.

Their sweet light rests upon our eyes.
Alas! their right to joy is plain.
If they are hungry Paradise
Weeps, and, if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.

The want that saps their sinless flower
Speaks judgment on sin's ministers.
Man holds an angel in his power.
Ah! deep in Heaven what thunder stirs,

When God seeks out these tender things
Whom in the shadow where we sleep
He sends us clothed about with wings,
And finds them ragged babes that weep — Victor Hugo

Global warming is a justice issue. It's a justice issue because global warming is theft - theft from our own children and grand children, of their right to a livable future. It's a justice issue, because its victims are, and will be, disproportionately poor and of color, those least able to contend with or to flee, the storms, droughts, famines, and rising tides of global warming. — Fred Small

Kaz narrowed his eyes. I'm not some character out of a children's story who plays harmless pranks and steals from the rich to give to the poor. — Leigh Bardugo

Fill your life with service to others. As you lose your life in the service of Father in Heaven's children, Satan's temptations lose power in your life. Because your Father in Heaven loves you profoundly, the Atonement of Jesus Christ makes that strength possible. Isn't it wonderful? Many of you have felt the burden of poor choices, and each of you can feel the elevating power of the Lord's forgiveness, mercy, and strength. — Richard G. Scott

Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs. — Arundhati Roy

While they are busy showing off, digging other people's graves, hanging themselves on a cross, running wild in the streets, cherries are quietly turning from green to red, oysters are suffering pearls, and children are catching rain in their mouths expecting the drops to be cold but they're not; they are warm and smell like pineapple before they get heavier and heavier, so heavy and fast they can't be caught one at a time. Poor swimmers head for shore while strong ones wait for lightning's silver veins. Bottle-green clouds sweep in, pushing the rain inland where palm trees pretend to be shocked by the wind. — Toni Morrison

Black men of integrity cannot make a deal with a politician and leave out the poor of the nation, all God's children. — Jesse Jackson

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselves unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance. — Henry David Thoreau

True, we are often too weak to stop injustices; but the least we can do is to protest against them. True, we are too poor to eliminate hunger; but in feeding one child, we protest against hunger. True, we are too timid and powerless to take on all the guards of all the political prisons in the world; but in offering our solidarity to one prisoner we denounce all the tormentors. True, we are powerless against death; but as long as we help one man, one woman, one child live one hour longer in safety and dignity, we affirm man's [woman's] right to live. — Elie Wiesel

As these remarks indicate, the Social Security program involves a transfer from the young to the old. To some extent such a transfer has occurred throughout history - the young supporting their parents, or other relatives, in old age. Indeed, in many poor countries with high infant death rates, like India, the desire to assure oneself of progeny who can provide support in old age is a major reason for high birth rates and large families. The difference between Social Security and earlier arrangements is that Social Security is compulsory and impersonal - earlier arrangements were voluntary and personal. Moral responsibility is an individual matter, not a social matter. Children helped their parents out of love or duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else's parents out of compulsion and fear. The earlier transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken them. — Milton Friedman

Fewer than 5 percent of Danes attend church. In godless Denmark, the national government funds a high quality education for all children, rich and poor alike, while in God-fearing America, education is funded through local property taxes, so neighborhood and income dictate a child's educational opportunities. Add in race and ethnicity factors to create a perfectly stratified school system segregated by educational opportunity. — Frank Schaeffer

What if all the forces of society were bent upon developing [poor] children? What if society's business were making people insteadof profits? How much of their creative beauty of spirit would remain unquenched through the years? How much of this responsiveness would follow them through life? — Mary Heaton Vorse

I dare to imagine a country where every child I hold in my hands, are all God's children, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of whether they're boy or girl, regardless of religion, regardless of rich or poor, that every child I hold in my hands, will have the same chance to reach her full potential or his full potential. That is the goodness of our country. That is the essence of the American dream. — Paul Wellstone

I think that it's not enough to do the little Band-Aid things of having celebrities come and read to children. Not that we don't need to read to children, but we don't need to just do it one time and feel good about it. I think we need to think long range about poor people and their relationship to libraries. — Sandra Cisneros

They were very poor, and their seven children incommoded them greatly, because not one of them was able to earn his bread. That which gave them yet more uneasiness was that the youngest was of a very puny constitution, and scarce ever spoke a word, which made them take that for stupidity which was a sign of good sense. He was very little, and when born no bigger than one's thumb, which made him be called Little Thumb. — Andrew Lang

Always the idea of unbroken quiet broods around the grave. It is a port where the storms of life never beat, and the forms that have been tossed on its chafing waves lie quiet forevermore. There the child nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother's arms, and the workman's hands lie still by his side, and the thinker's brain is pillowed in silent mystery, and the poor girl's broken heart is steeped in a balm that extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping of a charity that covers all blame. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

"We will wait," answered little Alice, taking Nettie's hand in hers, and looking up to the sky, "we will wait - ever constant and true - till the times have got so changed as that everything helps us out, and nothing makes us ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. We will wait - ever constant and true - till we are eighty, ninety, or one hundred. And then the fairies will send US children, and we will help them out, poor pretty little creatures, if they pretend ever so much." — Charles Dickens

Fully aware that life is too short for the choice to be anything but irreparable, he had been distressed to discover that he felt no spontaneous attraction to any occupation. Rather sceptically, he looked over the array of available possibilities: prosecutors, who spend their whole lives persecuting people; schoolteachers, the butt of rowdy children; science and technology, whose advances bring enormous harm along with a small benefit; the sophisticated, empty chatter of the social sciences; interior design (which appealed to him because of his memories of his cabinetmaker grandfather), utterly enslaved by fashions he detested; the occupation of the poor pharmacists now reduced to peddlars of boxes and bottles. When he wondered; what should I choose for my whole life's work? his inner self would fall into the most uncomfortable silence. — Milan Kundera

I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha been left to the men. — George Eliot

I am - Somebody. I may be poor, but I am - Somebody! I may be on welfare, but I am - Somebody! I may be uneducated, but I am - Somebody! I must be, I'm God's child. I must be respected and protected. I am black and I am beautiful! I am - Somebody! Soul Power! — Jesse Jackson

When we ignore the prostituted child, we actually lend our hand to their abuse. When we ignore the widow and the orphan in their distress, we actually add to their pain. When we ignore the slave who remains captive, it's us who is entrapping them. When we forget the refugee, it's actually us who is displacing them. When we choose not to help the poor and the needy, we actually rob them. Perhaps the only fair thing to say is that when we forsake the lives of others, we actually forsake our own. — Joel Houston

Marco reported that homeless children [in Kublai Kahn's city of Daidu] were cared for and educated. While he says little about the system of education in China, we know from records of the time that Kublai Khan created thousands of public schools to provide a basic education for all children, including those of poor peasants. Until then, only the wealthy were literate. Kublai's bid at 'universal education' had never been attempted by any country on Earth. In the western world, nearly 500 years would pass before governments began to take responsibility for the public education of all children. — Russell Freedman

Nothing is so sad, in my opinion, as the devastation wrought by age.
My poor friend. I have described him many times. Now to convey to you the difference. Crippled with arthritis, he propelled himself about in a wheelchair. His once plump frame had fallen in. He was a thin little man now. His face was lined and wrinkled. His moustache and hair, and hair, it is true, were still of a jet black colour, but candidly, though I would not for the world have hurt his feelings by saying so to him, this was a mistake. There comes a moment when hair dye is only too painfully obvious. There had been a time when I had been surprised to learn that the blackness of Poirot's hair came out of a bottle. But now the theatricality was apparent and merely created the impression that he wore a wig and had adorned his upper lip to amuse children! — Agatha Christie

I think uncertainty is good for things. Certainty breeds complacency and complacency means that you just sit somewhere in your nice little comfortable suburban house in Michigan, looking at CNN and saying, "Oh, those poor immigrant children that are all coming across the border. But we really can't have them here - that isn't what God wants. Let's send them all back to the drug cartels." There's a complacency to it. — Stephen King

And most of all, most emphatically of all, they hated how her favorite means of connecting was commiseration. "Oh, poor you!" she would say. "You're looking so tired!" Or "You must be feeling so lonely!" Other people showed love by offering compliments; Abby offered pity. It was not an attractive quality, in her children's opinion. — Anne Tyler

Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, W. E. B. DuBois, and Lyndon B. Johnson are just a few of the famous Americans who taught. They resisted the fantasy of educators as saints or saviors, and understood teaching as a job in which the potential for children's intellectual transcendence and social mobility, though always present, is limited by real-world concerns such as poor training, low pay, inadequate supplies, inept administration, and impoverished students and families. These teachers' stories, and those of less well-known teachers, propel this history forward and help us understand why American teaching has evolved into such a peculiar profession, one attacked and admired in equal proportion. — Dana Goldstein

Exploring Feelings for Young Children with High-Functioning Autism or Asperger's Disorder: The STAMP Treatment Manual offers practical recommendations and creative practices that will certainly help young children with high functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome overcome their struggles with the really tough issues blocking their positive growth and development. Therapists, educators and parents caring for autistic children who endure a heavy load of anger, distrust, difficult interpersonal relationships, poor self-esteem and self-doubt need this excellent book. — Liane Holliday Willey

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter. — Maya Angelou

All countries have poor people. Yet it's a very rare country which understands the indignities of poverty, while education systems maintain the status quo. The children of the elite go to the best schools and get the best jobs, not because they are the best. We're not taking advantage of the intellectual power on this planet. — Ann Cotton

Come, my child," I said, trying to lead her away. "Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries."
"Good-bye, poor hare!" Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child.
"Oh, my darling, my darling!" she moaned, over and over again. "And God meant your life to be so beautiful! — Lewis Carroll

So you chose not to be part of the bands of children who group together for the sole purpose of excluding others, and people look at you and say, poor girl, she's so isolated, but you know a secret, you know who you really are. You are the one human being who is capable of understanding the alien mind, because you are the alien mind; you know what it is to be unhuman because there's never been any human group that gave you credentials as a bona fide homo sapien
# [He] wondered if it was already too late to teach her how to be a human — Orson Scott Card

If poor [African] families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries...What matters to the children's well-being isn't so much the level of the family's wealth as whether it is controlled by the mother or by the father...One early pair of studies found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine, and housing, and consequently children are healthier. — Nicholas D. Kristof

The government belongs to the poor people of the country. We are custodian of people's hope. For whom should the government be? For educated people or few others. Government should be for the poor. If rich want to educate their children, they can send anywhere. If rich fall ill, hundreds of doctors are at service. So the foremost responsibility of the government should be to listen to the poor and work for them. If we do not work for the poor, the people will never pardon us. — Narendra Modi

Our role as artist is more controversial now because there are those, claiming the absolute authority of religion, who detest much of our work as much as they detest most of our politics. Instead of rationally debating subjects like abortion or gay rights, they condemn as immoral those who favor choice and tolerance. They disown their own dark side and magnify everyone else's until, at the extreme, doctors are murdered in the name of protecting life. I wonder, who is this God they invoke, who is so petty and mean? Is God really against gun control and food stamps for poor children? — Barbra Streisand

There is no slave, after all, like a wife ... Poor women, poor slaves All married women, all children and girls who live in their father's house are slaves. — Mary Boykin Chesnut

Well, what was it to be a thief? He met the question at last, face to face, wiping the clammy drops of sweat from his forehead. God made this money - the fresh air, too - for his children's use. He never made the difference between poor and rich. — Rebecca Harding Davis

I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer, anything like that, seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have children, to get trapped in the family structure. To go someplace to work every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day ... was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep. — Charles Bukowski

One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star ...
"Father! Those poor people!" I cried ...
"Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the solders now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye. — Corrie Ten Boom

A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

But her angry feminism had set as hard as concrete during years of living alongside the tough, hardworking, dirt-poor women of London's East End. Men often told a fairy tale in which there was a division of labor in families, the man going out to earn money, the woman looking after home and children. Reality was different. Most of the women Ethel knew worked twelve hours a day and looked after home and children as well. Underfed, overworked, living in hovels, and dressed in rags, they could still sing songs and laugh and love their children. In Ethel's view one of those women had more right to vote than any ten men. — Ken Follett

But know that to serve God is nothing else than to serve your neighbor and do good to him in love, be it a child, wife, servant, enemy, friend ... If you do not find yourself among the needy and the poor, where the Gospel shows us Christ, then you may know that your faith is not right, and that you have not yet tasted of Christ's benevolence and work for you. — Martin Luther

And so the game went on in this manner, a throng of children playing keep-away from a bowling ball tossed back and forth between two plump ogres. The air filled with shrieks and cheers and shouts of laughter as daring players thrilled at the sport. That is, all but the few poor souls knocked flat and captured. No laughter rose from behind bars because those in the birdcage knew what was in store. They would soon be lunch for a couple of hungry ogres.
Now you might be thinking - didn't Gavin call it fun when he was swallowed by a wolf earlier? And didn't he tell that raven-haired girl it doesn't hurt to be swallowed whole by a bear? All true, all true. But here's a secret you might not know.
Ogres chew their food.
Luckily, it's only the first bite that stings. — Richelle E. Goodrich

What used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation, this great sorting (has) taken place. It creates its own politics. There are some communities where not only do I not know poor people, I don't even know people who have trouble paying the bills at the end of the month. I just don't know those people. And so there's less sense of investment in those children. — Barack Obama

I've had a great deal of experience with adolescents over the centuries, and I've discovered that as a group these awkward half children take themselves far too seriously. Moreover, appearance is everything for the adolescent. I suppose it's a form of play-acting. The adolescent knows that the child is lurking under the surface, but he'd sooner die than let it out, and I was no different. I was so intent on being "grown-up" that I simply couldn't relax and enjoy life.
Most people go through this stage and outgrow it. Many, however, do not. The pose becomes more important than reality, and these poor creatures become hollow people, forever striving to fit themselves into an impossible mold. — David Eddings

When I'm brave and strong, and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person. And when I'm cruel, cowardly, or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone less worthy, and I can't respect myself. That's the divine retribution I believe in — Ken Follett

In 1990, when we started the Black Community Crusade for Children, we were always talking about all children, but we paid particular attention to children who were not white, who were poor, who were disabled, and who were the most vulnerable.Parents didn't think their children would live to adulthood, and the children didn't think they were going to live to adulthood. That's when we started our first gun-violence campaign. We've lost 17 times more young black people to gun violence since 1968 than we lost in all the lynching in slavery. — Marian Wright Edelman

At the Kings' she daily saw all she wanted, for the children's older sisters were just out, and Meg caught frequent glimpses of dainty ball dresses and bouquets, heard lively gossip about theaters, concerts, sleighing parties, and merrymakings of all kinds, and saw money lavished on trifles which would have been so precious to her. Poor — Louisa May Alcott

The line changed my life 'cause I thought of some poor woman I hadn't even met walking around the United States or the world not knowing she's going to be beaten up by me and these kids, unborn, not knowing they were going to be born into the family of a child-beater just because I was. So it really did have a great effect on me. — Terry Gross

Two years ago, George Bush felt prompted to address this issue. More spending on public education, said the president, isn't "the best answer." Mr. Bush went on to caution parents of poor children who see money "as a cure" for education problems. "A society that worships money ... ," said the president, "is a society in peril." The president himself attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts - a school that spends $11,000 yearly on each pupil, not including costs of room and board. If money is a wise investment for the education of a future president at Andover, it is no less so for the child of poor people in Detroit. But the climate of the times does not encourage this belief, and the president's words will surely reinforce that climate. — Jonathan Kozol

He has spoken blasphemy." This was a wrong charge to bring - for Pilate, having his superstition again aroused - is even more afraid to put him to death. And he comes out again, and says, "I find no fault in Him." What a strong contest between good and evil in that man's heart! But they cried out again, "If you let this man go you are not Caesar's friend." They hit the mark this time, and he yields to their clamor. He brings forth a basin of water, and he washes his hands before them all, and he says, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it." A poor way of escaping! That water could not wash the blood from his hands, though their cry did bring the blood on their heads - "His blood be on us, and on our children. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

She was ushered into a passage where the only light came from the tallow taper in the rabbi's hand. The house smelled of chicken soup. In the thousand miles she and Rosa and the children had traveled from Siberia, passed along like parcels from settlement to Jewish settlement, sometimes in houses, often in huts, that smell had been the one constant, as if they had followed its trail by sniffing, like dogs. However poor their hosts, a hen had been killed in their honor because hospitality demanded it. — Ariana Franklin

One thin's sure and nothing's surer
The rich get richer and the poor get - children.
In the meantime,
In between time ... — F Scott Fitzgerald

Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it's the good we don't do. It's the starving children we don't want to look at, the volunteering we avoid, the poor we don't want to serve, and the money we don't want to give. — John Ortberg

they feel ignored, unappreciated, and unloved. That's because their context-blind Aspie family members are so poor at empathic reciprocity. As we have learned, we come to know ourselves in relation to others. This doesn't just apply when children are developing self-esteem. Throughout our lifespan, we continue to weave and re-weave the context of our lives, based on the interactions we have with our friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones. This is why it is so important for an NT parent/partner to get feedback from their spouse. A smile, a hug, a kind word, a note of encouragement: These are messages that reinforce the NT's self-esteem and contribute to a healthy reciprocity in the relationship. Without these daily reminders from their loved ones, NTs can develop some odd defense mechanisms. One is to become psychologically invisible to others and even to themselves. — Kathy J. Marshack

I lay awake long into the night, obsessing over Lucy's failings. Never mind the drugs and adultery; she seemed to lack the most basic parental instincts for keeping the children out of harm's way. The drip, drip, drip of her poor judgment and neglect was pushing me over the edge. — James Whitfield Thomson

What saddens me most is that some poor woman out there has to be Garth's wife. And his three children
oh, his poor three children. What a despicable human being this guy is. — Benjamin Harrison

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children's plays, adult plays ... I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what's left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that — Charles Bukowski

A woman has her needs. What good is a mother to her poor children if she's suffering from low self-esteem and sexual frustration? If you don't get laid soon, you will literally close up. More importantly, you will shrivel. And you will become bitter. — Helen Fielding

Yes, my dear children, everything is good and precious in God's sight when we act from the motives of religion and of charity because Jesus Christ tells us that a glass of water would not go unrewarded. You see, therefore, my children, that although we may be quite poor, we can still easily give alms. — John Vianney

Ned looked down gravely at the sword in his hands. "This is no toy for children, least of all for a girl. What would Septa Mordane say if she knew you were playing with swords?"
"I wasn't playing," Arya insisted. "I hate Septa Mordane."
"That's enough." Her father's voice was curt and hard. "The septa is doing no more than is her duty, though gods know you have made it a struggle for the poor woman. Your mother and I have charged her with the impossible task of making you a lady. — George R R Martin

But I hope to maintain my credibility after I stop playing. Because, yes of course, now I play and I score goals and children all over are mad about me. Not just poor children - all children. We can make them really happy by the way we play, though I have to say that it's the poor ones that I think of most, the ones who can't come and watch the games at the stadium. We mean so much to them. That's why I'm so committed to this work. Later, after you've stopped playing, it's harder to have the same impact. But I will give it a go. I want to continue doing this kind of work for ever. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Whatever troubles come, let us play the man; let us show that we are not such little children as to be cast down by what may happen in this poor fleeting state of time. Our country is Immanuel's land, our hope is above the sky, and therefore, calm as the summer's ocean; we will see the wreck of everything earth-born, and yet rejoice in the God of our salvation. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There's a guy walking around a war-torn country, and he comes across a girl who's been killed by a bomb. The guy drops to his knees and goddamn, he cries that it's the worst thing he's ever seen. 'Oh my God, it's terrible. Look at that poor little girl. I can't go on.' When the guy gets up, he walks a few steps and sees five kids who have also been killed and burned by a bomb. Oh God, this is really bad, he thinks, but he gets up and walks until he sees ten girls who have been killed and says, 'What a shame,' as he walks by. By the time he gets to a hundred children who have been bombed and killed, he doesn't even slow down to look. He just doesn't care anymore. — Ole Anderson

They no longer shouted, because the thread of their lives had been cut off. They had no more needs or desires. Even in death, mothers held their children tightly in their arms. There were no more friends or foes. There was no more jealousy. All were equal. There was no longer any beauty or ugliness, for they all were yellow from the gas. There were no longer any rich or poor, for they all were equal before God's throne. And why all this? I keep asking myself that question. My life is hard, very hard. But I must live on to tell the world about all this barbarism. — Jankiel Wiernik

Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash' unless it's illegal. — Newt Gingrich

Let us all say together: "We want to build a green economy strong enough to life people out of poverty. We want to create green pathways out of poverty and into great careers for America's children. We want this 'green wave' to life all boats. This country can save the polar bears and poor kids too. — Van Jones

For two full days we picked green beans out in the field, under the molten rays of the summer sun, rows and rows of beans. And the more rows I picked alongside Serafino, the madder I grew inside, thinking about those charityless, virtueless, and benevolentless shitheads who have spread about this glorious land a melodyless song, a giftless song that accuses the immigrant of stealing their lunches - when in fact they are picking, packing, and purveying them.* Millions of immigrant workers - men, women, and children - ignorant, poor, yet so ripe with hope and determination and humility, even while bent over at the waist, picking America's crops, servicing America's insatiable appetite, shouldering the heaviest and most dangerous loads, not so much for themselves, but for America, daily, joyously, like Whitman's song: "A song for occupations! / In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find / the developments, — Richard Horan

Do not be ashamed of being poor, or of asking alms. Receive what is given you with humility, and accept a refusal meekly. Frequently call to mind Our Lady's journey into Egypt with her Holy Child, and of all the poverty, contempt and suffering they endured. If you follow their example you will indeed be rich amid your poverty. — Saint Francis De Sales

In these times, when so wide a gulf has opened between the rich and the poor, which, instead of narrowing, as all good men would have it, grows broader daily; it is most important that all ranks and degrees of people should understand whose hands are stretched out to separate these two great divisions of society each of whom, for its strength and happiness, and the future existence of this country, as a great and powerful nation, is dependent on the other. — Charles Dickens

Our women are not incredible because they have managed to avoid the difficulties of life - quite the opposite. They are incredible because of the way they face the trials of life. Despite the challenges and tests life has to offer - from marriage or lack of marriage, children's choices, poor health, lack of opportunities, and many other problems - they remain remarkably strong and immovable and true to the faith. Our sisters throughout the Church consistently succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. — Quentin L. Cook

All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don't need and who you are not. Then, when you can get little enough and naked enough and poor enough, you'll find that the little place where you really are is ironically more than enough and is all that you need. At that place, you will have nothing to prove to anybody and nothing to protect.
That place is called freedom. It's the freedom of the children of God. Such people can connect with everybody. They don't feel the need to eliminate anybody ... — Richard Rohr

During World War II, a few years after Norma Jeane's time in an orphanage, thousands of children were evacuated from the air raids and poor rations of London during the Blitz, and placed with volunteer families or group homes in the English countryside or even in other countries. It was only postwar studies comparing these children to others left behind that opened the eyes of many experts to the damage caused by emotional neglect. In spite of living in bombed-out ruins and constant fear of attack, the children who had been left with their mothers and families tended to fare better than those who had been evacuated to physical safety. Emotional security, continuity, a sense of being loved unconditionally for oneself - all those turn out to be as important to a child's development as all but the most basic food and shelter. — Gloria Steinem

The U.S. has become the most egregious war-monger and terrorist nation in the world, as well as the long-time leading purveyor of weapons of war throughout the world, and because here at home, we have 50 million of our citizens living in poverty, one in four children surviving on Food Stamps, a collapsing education system, poor health care, and many other disasters, none of which can be addressed as long as the country keeps pouring trillions of dollars into war and militarism. This madness and criminality must end! — Dave Lindorff

I'm for the poor man - all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children. 'Every man a king' - that's my slogan. — Huey Long

The poorest of families, the poorest of children, are subsidizing the growth of the largest agribusinesses in the world. I think it's time we recognized that in free trade the poor farmer, the small farmer, is ending up having to pay royalties to the Monsantos of the world. — Vandana Shiva

All lives have equal value. And so you say, 'why do poor children die when other children don't? Why do some people have enough nutrition or reasonable toilets and other people don't?' So those basic needs that, through innovation, actually it's very affordable to bring them ... to everyone. — Bill Gates

Tipsy, they tumbled early into bed - to get as much sleep as they could. So they would feel less hunger. The summer catch had been poor; there wasn't much food. They ate with care and looked sideways at the old: the old were gluttons, everybody knew it, and what was the good of feeding them? It wouldn't harm them to starve a little.
The hungry dogs howled. The women rinsed the children's bellies with hot water three times a day, so they wouldn't cry so much for food. The old starved silently. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin