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Quotes of the Day for 30 June 2003 - Poverty

On this day in 1572 the English Poor Law, the first known welfare legislation, was adopted under the reign of Elizabeth I. Local churches were responsible for distributing aid to those who couldn't work, public jobs were created for the able-bodied, and healthy vagrants were punished. Herewith some quotes relating to poverty.

You, that have toiled during youth, to set your son upon higher ground, and to enable him to begin where you left off, do not expect that son to be what you were - diligent, modest, active, simple in his tastes, fertile in resources.... Poverty educated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the result will be the same.
     - Anna Laetitia Barbauld

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
     - Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
     - Henry David Thoreau, 1817 - 1862

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.
     - Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908 - 1973

Thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought poor.
     - William Corbett

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