Respect The Poor Quotes & Sayings

The gifts of fate come with a price. For those who have been favored by life's indulgence, rigorous respect in matters of beauty is a non-negotiable requirement. Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work. Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are forgotten or reborn, and while there are instances where transgression can become the source of an even greater wealth, this does not alter the fact that to be entitled to the liberties of playfulness or enlightened misusage when using language, one must first and foremost have sworn one's total allegiance. Society's elect, those whom fate has spared from the servitude that is the lot of the poor, must, consequently, shoulder the double burden of worshipping and respecting the splendors of language. — Muriel Barbery

My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones. — Condoleezza Rice

Some people get offended by what I write, by what I do with my life and by what I say to those they never saw. And they also get offended when told they are too stupid to have the right to judge anyone. These poor souls don't know that respect and intelligence are correlated. — Daniel Marques

How could anyone be so stupid as to trust a trader? The best thing I could do was pretend to others at Salomon that I had meant to screw the customer. People would respect that. That was called jamming. I had just jammed bonds, albeit unknowingly, for the first time. I had lost my innocence. — Michael Lewis

I have a religion-but you will call it blasphemy. It is that there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor ... Perhaps your religion will sustain you,will feed you-I place no dependence in mine. Our religions are alike, though, in one respect-neither can make a man happy when he is out of luck. — Mark Twain

Our poor people are great people, a very lovable people, They don't need our pity and sympathy. They need our understanding love and they need our respect. We need to tell the poor that they are somebody to us that they, too, have been created, by the same loving hand of God, to love and be loved. — Mother Teresa

I would not send a poor girl into the world, ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself. — Anne Bronte

Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God's creation, made in his own image, destined to live for ever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect. — Pope Francis

A new world must be born, a world that would justify the sacrifices offered by humanity. This new world must be a world in which there shall be no exploitation of the weak by the strong, of the good by the evil; where there will be no humiliation of the poor by the violence of the rich; where the products of intellect, science and art will serve society for the betterment and beautification of life, and not the individuals for achieving wealth.
This new world shall not be a world of the downtrodden and humiliated, but of free men and free nations, equal in dignity and respect. — Nikola Tesla

In America, the rich man tries to pretend that the poor man is his equal in every respect but money, which is simply not true. — Donna Tartt

The poor man commands respect; the beggar must always excite anger. — Napoleon Bonaparte

No one must ever let power or social, economic, or political interest turn him or her away from other human beings, from the attention they deserve and the respect they are entitled to. nothing must ever lead to a person to compromise this principle or faith in favor of a political strategy aimed at saving or protecting a community from some peril. The freely offered, sincere heart of a poor, powerless individual is worth a thousand times more in the sight of God than the assiduously courted, self-interested heart of a rich one. — Tariq Ramadan

The third klesha says that even with a healthy self-image we recoil from things that threaten our egos. These threats exist everywhere. I am afraid of being poor, of losing my spouse, of breaking the law. I am afraid to shame myself before anyone whose respect I want to keep. For some people, the thought of their children turning out badly is a deep threat to their own sense of self. "We don't do that in this family" is usually code for "Your behavior threatens who I am." But people don't recognize that they are speaking in code. Once I have identified with my self-image, the fear that it might break down is instinctive. The need to protect myself from what I fear is part of who I am. — Deepak Chopra

At a minimum it must involve renouncing any desire or ambition to become wealthy or famous; fostering vertical solidarity between rich and poor as well as horizontal solidarity between consumers and producers; rendering effective assistance to marginalized groups in society such as the poor and immigrants; a shared commitment to traditional values, particularly with respect to sex and marriage, as well as a recognition of the importance of families and children; opposition to abortion; an emphasis on environmental stewardship and caring for creation; and a commitment to nonviolence. — Solidarity Hall

If you've treated your girlfriend without respect, taken advantage of her, or cheated on her, your actions have taught her that she has no value. Needless to say, this is a serious, serious injury. If you don't try to make it right, she might start to believe the lie you've told her and spend the rest of her life thinking she deserves poor treatment. — Josh Shipp

God's greatest blessings are upon those who show the proper respect for the poor and the needy. — Lester Roloff

The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. — Pope Francis

They argue that, if the governments of developed countries want a fifty-fifty chance of hitting the agreed-upon international target of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius, and if reductions are to respect any kind of equity principle between rich and poor nations, then wealthy countries need to start cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by something like 8 to 10 percent a year - and they need to start right now. The idea that such deep cuts are required used to be controversial in the mainstream climate community, where the deadlines for steep reductions always seemed to be far off in the future (an 80 percent cut by 2050, for instance). But as emissions have soared and as tipping points loom, that is changing rapidly. Even Yvo de Boer, who held the U.N.'s top climate position until 2009, remarked recently that "the only way" negotiators "can achieve a 2-degree goal is to shut down the whole global economy."48 — Naomi Klein

This is the oath of a Knight of King Arther's Round Table and should be for all of us to take to heart. I will develop my life for the greater good. I will place character above riches, and concern for others above personal wealth, I will never boast, but cherish humility instead, I will speak the truth at all times, and forever keep my word, I will defend those who cannot defend themselves, I will honor and respect women, and refute sexism in all its guises, I will uphold justice by being fair to all, I will be faithful in love and loyal in friendship, I will abhor scandals and gossip-neither partake nor delight in them, I will be generous to the poor and to those who need help, I will forgive when asked, that my own mistakes will be forgiven, I will live my life with courtesy and honor from this day forward. — King Arthur

I have often thought that Walter Mitty had it in him to be more than a hen-pecked loser. Instead of living it up as a flamboyant daredevil in his dreams, he could have chosen to be a responsible man in real life, going about his work with dignity, and people may just have treated him with respect. Did his failures in life lead him to seek solace in daydreams or did his wandering mind stand in the way of his potential success? One must have triggered the other, and then it would have been both working together. An empty life drives you to fantasies of fulfilment, which then form a deadly, vicious circle which can turn you into a cartoon, as it did poor Mitty. Or lead you to ruin like Madame Bovary. — Indu Muralidharan

Correlation between the growing lack of respect for ideas and the imagination and the increasing gap between rich and poor in America, reflected not just in the gulf between the salaries of CEOs and their employees but also in the high cost of education, the incredible divide between private and public schools that makes all of the fine speeches by our policy makers - most of whom send their children to private schools anyway, just as they enjoy the benefits and perks of their jobs as servants of the people - all the more insidious and insincere. — Azar Nafisi

I wanted Yoda to be the traditional kind of character you find in fairy tales and mythology. And that character is usually a frog or a wizened old man on the side of the road. The hero is going down the road and meets this poor and insignificant person. The goal or lesson is for the hero to learn to respect everybody and to pay attention to the poorest person because that's where the key to his success will be. — George Lucas

We shall never want to serve God in our real and secret hearts if He looms in our subconscious mind as an arbitrary Dictator or a Spoil-sport, or as one who takes advantage of His position to make us poor mortals feel guilty and afraid. We have not only to be impressed by the "size" and unlimited power of God, we have to be moved to genuine admiration, respect, and affection, if we are ever to worship Him. — John Bertram Phillips

At the time the Sendmail program had a very poor reputation with respect to security, with four root vulnerabilities per year for two successive years. — Wietse Venema

Poor little babies are so afraid of pain that they spurn the myriad sweet wonders of life so that they might protect themselves from hurt. How can you respect that sort of weakness, how can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointments can bring? — Tom Robbins

Give me your time, your honesty, your respect, kindness, patience, fidelity. Give me comfort when things are tough ... I give off an air of being self-sufficient and instead of expressing and demanding the right kind of love for myself, I always wanted to appear like I was fine, in fact, I thought I was fine - and so did they. But it wasn't true. Just because you're a strong girl doesn't mean you don't need to be loved and cared for like anybody else. And it doesn't matter where you sit in this world, poor or rich, famous or not, we all need to be loved in the right way. — Jennifer Lopez

In Community of Caring, we believe the quality of caring we give to our parents, to our brothers and sisters, to our families, to our friends and neighbors, and to the poor and the powerless endows a life, a community with respect, hope and happiness. — Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Charity is salt in the wound. It is painful. The state gives charity with the bitter hatred of a victim to his blackmailer. The receiver of free money is subjected to harassment, insult, and profound humiliation. Newspapers are enlisted to heap scorn on the arrogant bastards who choose to beg instead of starve or let their children starve. It is made clear that the poor seek charity as a great and sordid chicanery in which they delight. And there are some who do. As there are people who take delight in sticking hot needles deep into their abdomens, swallow pieces of broken bottles. A special taste. Speaking for humanity in general, the poor accept charity with a shame and loss of self-respect that is truly pitiful. — Mario Puzo

After Chopin's death, Polish patriots cut up his body to take out his heart. They nationalized this poor muscle and buried it in Poland.
A dead person is treated either as trash or as a symbol. Either way, it's the same disrespect to his vanished individuality. — Milan Kundera

Do not despise any man, however poor he may be; but behave with full respect and kindness to every well-intentioned man, especially to the poor, as to our members worthy of compassion - or, rather, to members of Christ - otherwise you will cruelly wound your soul. — John Of Kronstadt

When the poor at the BOP are treated as consumers, they can reap the benefits of respect, choice, and self-esteem and have an opportunity to climb out of the poverty trap. — C. K. Prahalad

Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.
Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect
My love should kindle to inflamed respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find. — William Shakespeare

There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in placing the highest value on that station and association which is their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these fatal facts out of sight
for starting, trembling, quailing at the chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more our experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbor's conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed. — Charlotte Bronte

The poor old earth which has mothered us and nursed us we treat with scant respect. Our awe and veneration we reserve for the worlds we know not of. Our senses sell us out. The mud on our shoes disenchants us. — John Burroughs

Ay, I know she's asked for credit at several places, saying her husband laid hands on every farthing he could get for drink. But th' undertakers urge her on, you see, and tell her this thing's usual, and that thing's only a common mark of respect, and that everybody has t'other thing, till the poor woman has no will o' her own. I dare say, too, her heart strikes her (it always does when a person's gone) for many a word and many a slighting deed to him who's stiff and cold; and she thinks to make up matters, as it were, by a grand funeral, though she and all her children, too, may have to pinch many a year to pay the expenses, if ever they pay them at all. — Elizabeth Gaskell

We, who were reduced to eating on the sidewalk , were suddenly elevated in status by this man's misery. We were the aristocrats and he the beggar. It flattered us. We were superbly above him and the comedy gave us a delusion of high self-respect. In a while, the magnanimity of the rich would complete the picture. We would feed our scraps to the poor. — John Howard Griffin

Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man with rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To borrow St. Paul's words, the former is as "having nothing, yet possessing all things," while the other, though possessing all things has nothing. Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self respect, is still rich. — Samuel Smiles

The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect. — Ambrose Bierce

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women. — Cate Blanchett

She can't go into public care," he explained. "She'd pine away. The poor simpleton is far too used to me." That was when Fandorin really astounded him. "I envy you," he said, sighing. "You're a fortunate man, Tulipov. At such a young age you already have reason to respect yourself - something you can be proud of. The Lord has given you a firm center for the whole of your life. — Boris Akunin

The thing which grieves and oppresses my heart with respect to poor Scotland, is the hardness of heart manifest in the levity and cruelty with which they speak of others. — Edward Irving

I have told you some of his faults, reader: as to his good points, he was one of the most honourable and capable men in Yorkshire; even those who disliked him were forced to respect him. He was much beloved by the poor, because he was thoroughly kind and very fatherly to them. To his workmen he was considerate and cordial. When he dismissed them from an occupation, he would try to set them on to something else, or, if that was impossible, help them to remove with their families to a district where work might possibly be had. — Charlotte Bronte

Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings. — Pope Francis

[T]he blossom of benevolence, of charity, is the fairest flower, no matter whether it blooms by the side of a hovel, or bursts from a vine climbing the marble pillar of a palace. I respect no man because he is rich; I hold in contempt no man because he is poor. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I think that the poorest of the poor ... look up to wealthy and successful Indians with some degree of respect and pride. — Vijay Mallya

How could it be that none of it mattered? It was most of what happened. But if it did matter, how could the world go on the way it did when there were so many people living the same and worse? Poor was nothing, tired and hungry were nothing. But people were only trying to get by, and no respect for them at all, even the wind soiling them. No matter how proud and hard they were, the wind making their faces run with tears. That was existence, and why didn't it roar and wrench itself apart like the storm it must be, if so much of existence is all that bitterness and fear? Even now, thinking of the man who called himself her husband, what if he turned away from her? It would be nothing. What if the child was no child? There would be an evening and a morning. The quiet of the world was terrible to her, like mockery. She had hoped to put an end to these thoughts, but they returned to her, and she returned to them. — Marilynne Robinson

The idea of decimation as a lottery converts the new iconography of the Burgess Shale into a radical view about the pathways of life and the nature of history ... May our poor and improbable species find joy in its new-found fragility and good fortune! Wouldn't anyone with the slightest sense of adventure, or the most weakly flickering respect for intellect, gladly exchange the old cosmic comfort for a look at something so weird and wonderful - yet so real - as *Opabinia*? — Stephen Jay Gould

London was a city of ghosts, some deader than others.
Thorne knew that in this respect, it wasn't unlike any other major city - New York or Paris or Sydney - but he felt instinctively that London was ... at the extreme. The darker side of that history, as opposed to the parks, palaces and pearly kings' side that made busloads of Japanese and American tourists gawk and jabber. The hidden history of a city where the lonely, the dispossessed, the homeless, wandered the streets, brushing shoulders with the shadows of those that had come before them. A city in which the poor and the plague-ridden, those long-since hanged for stealing a loaf or murdered for a shilling, jostled for position with those seeking a meal, or a score, or a bed for the night.
A city where the dead could stay lost a long time — Mark Billingham

His arrogance marked something new in the world, for this was the first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors, courtesy of the most efficient propaganda machine ever created (with all due respect to Joseph Goebbels and the Nazis, who never achieved global domination). Hollywood's high priests understood innately the observation of Milton's Satan, that it was better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, better to be a villain, loser, or antihero than virtuous extra, so long as one commanded the bright lights of center stage. In this forthcoming Hollywood trompe l'oeil, all the Vietnamese of any side would come out poorly, herded into the roles of the poor, the innocent, the evil, or the corrupt. Our fate was not to be merely mute; we were to be struck dumb. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

You think he is marrying her for money?'
'Yes, I do. Don't you think so?'
'I should say quite certainly,' said Miss Marple. 'Like young Ellis who married Marion Bates, the rich ironmonger's daughter. She was a very plain girl and absolutely besotted about him. However, it turned out quite well. People like young Ellis and this Gerald Wright are only really disagreeable when they've married a poor girl for love. They are so annoyed with themselves for doing it that they take it out of the girl. But if they marry a rich girl they continue to respect her. — Agatha Christie

Never dress down for the poor. They won't respect you for it. They want their First Lady to look like a million dollars. — Imelda Marcos

In one important respect a man is fortunate in being poor. His responsibility to God is so much the less — Christian Nestell Bovee

I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness. — Narendra Modi

Three thousand people died at ground zero. Their families are entitled to a little bit of respect, to respect the memory of those poor people that died there. And how about the families of all those soldiers that died in the two ensuing wars? Aren't they entitled to a little bit of respect - the kids, the wives, the parents? — Carl Paladino

The covenant between Jews and God was conditional on their respect for human rights. The reason they were expelled from the land was that they were more interested in money and power and treated the poor and aliens with contempt. — Stephen Sizer

For this was the age of The Girl. We had come out of the back parlor, out of the kitchen and nursery, we turned our backs upon the blackboards, shed aprons and paper cuffs. A war had freed us and given women a new kind of self-respect.
The adjective poor no longer preceded the once disreputable "working girl". It was honorable, it was jolly, it was even superior to be a "career girl". — Vera Caspary

To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it. — Judith Martin

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

When I was sworn in as a judge of the court of appeals, I took an oath. I put my hand on the Bible and I swore that I would administer justice without respect to persons, that I would do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I would carry out my duties under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. — Samuel Alito

Ev'n the sick and the poor deserve healthcare. Ev'n the sick and the poor deserve respect. — T.R. Graves

At this moment the President is beginning to speak in New Orleans and the Vice-President is mounting the platform at NASA a few miles away. Both are making a plea for unity. The President, who is an integrationist Mormon married to a liberated Catholic, will appeal to Leftists to respect law and order. The Vice-President, a Southern Baptist Knothead married to a conservative Unitarian, is asking Knotheads for tolerance and understanding, etcetera. The poor U.S.A.! Even — Walker Percy

Famine is good to the corn-merchant, evil to the poor, and indifferent to those whose fortunes can at all times command a superfluity. Ambition is evil to the restless bosom it inhabits, to the innumerable victims who are dragged by its ruthless thirst for infamy, to expire in every variety of anguish, to the inhabitants of the country it depopulates, and to the human race whose improvement it retards; it is indifferent with regard to the system of the Universe, and is good only to the vultures and the jackals that track the conqueror's career, and to the worms who feast in security on the desolation of his progress. It is manifest that we cannot reason with respect to the universal system from that which only exists in relation to our own perceptions. — Christopher Hitchens

To many an upright poor person, it seems needless to invent a god who will wash the feet of beggars and exalt those who do not care to labor. What is this but a denial of thrift and a sickly obsession with the victim? The so-called common people are quite able to penetrate this ruse ("The good lord must indeed love the poor, since he made so many of them"). Many decent people are made uneasy by the constant injunction to give alms and to dwell among those who have lost their self-respect. They can also see the hook sticking out of the bait: abandon this useless life, leave your family, and follow the prophet who says that the world is soon to pass away. Such an injunction coupled with an implicit or explicit "or else" is repulsive to many conservatives who believe in self-reliance and personal integrity, and who distrust "charity," just as it was repulsive to the early socialists who did not think that poverty was an ideal or romantic or ennobled state. — Christopher Hitchens

The business man who gains success at the expense of the poor and miserable gains nil respect from his peers. — Clarence H. Burns

I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with his meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end. — Kurt Vonnegut

Poor people have poor options. Chavez found the Army almost by accident, and had found it a true open of security and opportunity and fellowship and respect. — Tom Clancy

He isn't a government or an army. He's a guy. No matter what you think of any particular war, you've got to feel something for some poor guy ripped out of his life and handed a gun and sent somewhere to kill other guys who've been ripped out of their lives and sent to do the same thing, and while they're both shivering in their foxholes, scared they're not going to see another sunrise, all the fat cats, all the generals and politicos and priests and mullahs and tribal elders who started the whole damn thing, sit way to the rear, moving their chess pieces around." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder as he took a breath. "He got handed the dirty end of a dirty stick but he handled it. You've got to respect that. — F. Paul Wilson

From the standpoint of the upper classes, the system had many merits. They felt that what was paid out of the poor rate was charity, and therefore a proof of their benevolence; at the same time, wages were kept at starvation level by a method which just prevented discontent from developing into revolution ... It was plainly the certainty, derived from the old Poor Law, that actual death would be averted by the parish authorities, which induced the rural poor of England to endure their misery patiently ... it taught them respect for their 'betters'.While leaving all the wealth that they produced, beyond the absolute minimum required for subsistence, in the hands of the landowners and farmers. It was at this period that landowners built the sham Gothic ruins called 'follies', where they indulged in romantic sensibility about the past while they filled the present with misery and degradation. — Bertrand Russell

To transport this way along bouncy mountain roads is not the way to die. Every woman deserves the simple dignity of dying in a bed with clean sheets and an electric light at hand. They wanted me to participate in a horrible abomination. I simply will not countenance the lack of respect for the poor mother of those boys. Imagine how she would feel if she woke up and saw her sons piled at her side.
-spoken by Sara to Matt regarding a victim of Amanita Phalloides [poisoning — Joe Niemczura

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. — Henry David Thoreau

He was no doubt correct. "Greed is all-consuming," I remarked. He laughed. "You poor idiot. The day of the gentleman is over. Only those with money will matter, only those who can pay will command respect and attention. You are puffed with pride because of your so-called honor, but your honor will disappear. Wealth will become honor, and I will have all of it." His smile widened. "You are not answering, Captain? What is the matter?" My voice went cold and hard. "I have no wish to waste time lecturing you. You are a fool, and soon you will learn how much of a fool. — Ashley Gardner

I got what I wanted, I guess. I'm here, in this home that I worked so hard to insulate from the problems of the world, our happy little bubble. The girls have their father every night. Adam has a newfound respect for me, the New Rachel, for the glittering, sharp edge that's emerged like a razor in the grass. When I think about my old self, I feel pity and yearning at the same time. Poor Old Rachel, the sweet, naive idiot. And lucky Old Rachel, so completely happy. There's one niggling thought I can't shake, one that keeps me awake at night. What would I tell my daughters if they came to me with the news that their husband had a mistress? That he told her, my precious daughter, that sex with the other woman was amazing? Stay and work things out. Oh, and get that STD panel ASAP, darlings! But do stay. Take all that hurt and betrayal and just ball it up and swallow it. Want to bake cookies? — Kristan Higgins

I will never tire of repeating this: what the poor need the most is not pity but love. They need to feel respect for their human dignity, which is neither less nor different from the dignity of any other human being. — Mother Teresa

In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. — Henry David Thoreau

I think we're much more hypocritical about illness, and poverty, than were people in former ages," I remember Julian saying once. "In America, the rich man tries to pretend that the poor man is his equal in every respect but money, which is simply not true. Does anyone remember Plato's definition of Justice in the Republic? Justice, in a society, is when each level of a hierarchy works within its place and is content with it. A poor man who wishes to rise above his station is only making himself needlessly miserable. And the wise poor have always known this, the same as do the wise rich. — Donna Tartt

I think it's very sad that CNN leads Jeb Bush, down a road by starting off virtually all the questions, "Mr. Trump this, Mister" - I think it's very sad. I watched the first debate, and the first long number of questions were, "Mr. Trump said this, Mr. Trump said that. Mr. Trump" - these poor guys - although, I must tell you, [Rick] Santorum, good guy. Governor [Mike] Huckabee, good guy. They were very nice, and I respect them greatly. But I thought it was very unfair that virtually the entire early portion of the debate was Trump this, Trump that, in order to get ratings, I guess. — Jeb Bush

People used to show me respect, to bow down to me; time has passed; I see no more of this. I have known gladness and sorrow, I have rejoiced and I have wept; the same happens to me now but, as the days go by, sorrow and gladness, joy and tears go with them. I have been praised and exalted, I have been criticized and abused; the same who praised me, have cursed; and those who abused have turned to praise me ... such is human constantly! Poor is man from his mother's womb to his grave. Born with a cry, he lives, tossed up and down as a ship on a sea, and dies with tears. — Tikhon Of Zadonsk

If we talk about the living oracles and want to pay respect to them, how shall we do this? Shall we do it by never reading their words-by paying not attention to that which they say? That is a very poor way of doing.
We ought to listen to their words. When we cannot hear their words, we should read them; for they are the words of the authorized servants of God. I feel that there is a great neglect among us in this respect.
CR, 1897, 38, George Q. Cannon (CR is Reports of the General Conferences of the Church) — John Andreas Widtsoe

Welfare bureaucracies claim a professional, political, and financial monopoly over the social imagination, setting standards of what is valuable and what is feasible. This monopoly is at the root of the modernization of poverty. Every simple need to which an institutional answer is found permits the invention of a new class of poor and a new definition of poverty. Once basic needs have been translated by a society into demands for scientifically produced commodities, poverty is defined by standards which the technocrats can change at will. Poverty then refers to those who have fallen behind an advertised ideal of consumption in some important respect. — Ivan Illich

Our founders understood that divine authority was necessary in order to establish a ground on which the weak, the defenseless, the powerless, the poor and the wretched would be able to stand, in the face of every human power whatsoever, and demand respect for their human rights and dignity. — Alan Keyes

If you disagree with something, it's easier to say 'you suck' than to figure out and explain exactly what you disagree with. You're also safe that way from refutation. In this respect trolling is a lot like graffiti. Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world. — Paul Graham

If you look at the world's top 50 drugs being sold today, they are being marketed and sold by companies that did not invent them. I respect patents. I'll pay a royalty. But I shouldn't be denied the right to produce drugs for poor people at reasonable prices. — Yusuf Hamied

So I really would like to see both parties respond to the poor with greater commitment. But I've got to tell you, the Democrats, I feel, are doing a better job in that respect than Republicans are. — Tony Campolo