Other related topics at: Money 41. Poverty; Wealth "When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune. -- So you hear people talking how miserable a King must be; and yet they all wish to be in his place." Boswell: Life Link 90. Poverty He said, "the poor in England were better provided for, than in any other country of the same extent: he did not mean little Cantons, or pretty Republicks. Where a great proportion of the people are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization." Boswell: Life Link 145. Charity; Life; Poverty What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." Piozzi: Anecdotes Link 148. Eating; Poverty I was saying to a friend one day, that I did not like goose; one smells it so while it is roasting, said I: "But you, Madam (replies the Doctor), have been at all times a fortunate woman, having always had your hunger forestalled by indulgence, that you never experienced the delight of smelling your dinner beforehand." Which pleasure, answered I pertly, is to be enjoyed in perfection by such as have the happiness to pass through Porridge-Island* of a morning. "Come, come (says he gravely), let's have no sneering at what is serious to so many: hundreds of your fellow creatures, dear Lady, turn another way, that they may not be tempted by the luxuries of Porridge-Island to wish for gratifications they are not able to obtain: you are certainly not better than all of them; give God thanks that you are happier." *Porridge-Island is a mean street in London, filled with cook-shops for the convenience of the poorer inhabitants; the real name of it I know not, but suspect that it is generally known by, to have been originally a term of derision. [Piozzi] Piozzi: Anecdotes Link 149. Poverty ...after a very long summer particularly hot and dry, I was wishing naturally but thoughtlessly for some rain to lay the dust as we drove along the Surrey roads. "I cannot bear (replied he, with much asperity and an altered look), when I know how many poor families will perish next winter for want of that bread which the present drought will deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only that their complexions may not suffer from the heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the dust; --for shame! leave off such foppish lamentations, and study to relieve those whose distresses are real." Piozzi: Anecdotes Link 176. Poverty "Want of money (says Dr. Johnson) is sometimes concealed under pretended avarice, and sly hints of aversion to part with it; sometimes under stormy anger, and affectation of boundless rage; but oftener still under a shew of thoughtless extravagance and gay neglect -- while to a penetrating eye, none of these wretched veils suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen." Piozzi: Anecdotes Link 224. Economics; Poverty "The truth is, that luxury produces much good. Take the luxury of building in London. Does it not produce real advantage in the conveniency and elegance of accommodation, and this all from the exertion of industry? People will tell you, with a melancholy face, how many builders are in gaol, not for building; for rents are not fallen. -- A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? how many labourers must the competition to have such things early in the market, keep in employment? You will hear it said, very gravely, 'Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal?' Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the idle poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompence of their labour, than when you give money merely in charity." Boswell: Life Link 360. Novelty; Poverty "Novelty always has some power, an unaccustomed mode of begging excites an unaccustomed degree of pity." Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 455. Appearance; Poverty "Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances: it is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest; they support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for the morrow." Johnson: Rasselas [the princess Nekayah] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 652. Poverty "It is impossible to pass a day or an hour in the confluxes of men, without seeing how much indigence is exposed to contumely, neglect, and insult; and, in its lowest state, to hunger and nakedness; to injuries against which every passion is in arms, and to wants which nature cannot sustain." Johnson: Rambler #53 (September 18, 1750) Link 653. Poverty "In the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy." Johnson: Rambler #53 (September 18, 1750) Link 671. Poverty "If there are any who do not dread poverty as dangerous to virtue, yet mankind seem unanimous enough in abhorring it as destructive to happiness." Johnson: Rambler #57 (October 2, 1750) Link 672. Economy; Old Age; Poverty "The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing. For, though in every age there are some who, by bold adventures, or by favorable accidents, rise suddenly to riches, yet it is dangerous to indulge hopes of such rare events; and the bulk of mankind must owe their affluence to small and gradual profits, below which their expense must be resolutely reduced." Johnson: Rambler #57 (October 2, 1750) Link 720. Poverty "Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving; and this choice is, I suppose, equally allowed in every country." Johnson: "On the Bravery of the Common English Soldiers." Link 756. Poverty "The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence." Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets) Link 810. Poverty Slow rises worth, By poverty deprest. Johnson: London Link 862. Poverty "A severe and punctilious temper is ill qualified for transactions with the poor." Johnson: Swift (Lives of the Poets) Link 983. Poverty "What we are told about the great sums got by begging is not true: the trade is overstocked. And, you may depend upon it, there are many who cannot get work. A particular kind of manufacture fails; those who have been used to work at it, can, for some time, work at nothing else. You meet a man begging; you charge him with idleness; he says, 'I am willing to labour. Will you give me work?' -- 'I cannot.' -- 'Why, then you have no right to charge me with idleness.' " Boswell: Life of Johnson Link 1,335. Bias; Poverty; Quality "No complaint has been more frequently repeated in all ages than that of the neglect of merit associated with poverty, and the difficulty with which valuable or pleasing qualities force themselves into view, when they are obscured by indigence. It has long been observed, that native beauty has little power to charm without the ornaments which fortune bestows, and that to want the favour of others is often sufficient to hinder us from obtaining it." Johnson: Rambler #166 (October 19, 1751) Link 1,336. Bias; Class; Poverty; Wealth "The eye of wealth is elevated towards higher stations, and seldom descends to examine the actions of those who are placed below the level of its notice, and who in distant regions and lower situations are struggling with distress, or toiling for bread. Among the multitudes overwhelmed with insuperable calamity, it is common to find those whom a very little assistance would enable to support themselves with decency, and who yet cannot obtain from near relations what they see hourly lavished in ostentation, luxury, or frolic." Johnson: Rambler #166 (October 19, 1751) Link 1,400. Action/Inaction; Economy; Poverty; Wealth "The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and dread of poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that such conduct as will inevitably destroy what all are thus labouring to acquire must generally be avoided? That he who spends more than he receives must in time become indigent cannot be doubted; but how evident soever this consequence may appear, the spendthrift moves in the whirl of pleasure with too much rapidity to keep it before his eyes, and, in the intoxication of gaiety, grows every day poorer without any such sense of approaching ruin as is sufficient to wake him into caution." Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751) Link 1,465. Poverty "There are few words of which the reader believes himself better to know the import than of poverty; yet whoever studies either the poets or philosophers will find such an account of the condition expressed by that term as his experience or observation will not easily discover to be true. Instead of the meanness, distress, complaint, anxiety, and dependence which have hitherto been combined in his ideas of poverty, he will read of content, innocence, and cheerfulness, of health and safety, tranquillity and freedom; of pleasures not known but to men unencumbered with possessions; and of sleep that sheds his balsamic anodynes only on the cottage. Such are the blessings to be obtained by the resignation of riches that kings might descend from their thrones, and generals retire from a triumph, only to slumber undisturbed in the elysium of poverty." Johnson: Rambler #202 (February 22, 1752) Link 1,466. Posturing; Poverty "Vanity has perhaps contributed to this impropriety of style*. He that wishes to become a philosopher at a cheap rate easily gratifies his ambition by submitting to poverty when he does not feel it, and by boasting his contempt of riches, when he has already more than he enjoys." Johnson: Rambler #202 (February 22, 1752) *Literary style whereby poverty is glorified (F. Lynch) Link 1,467. Poverty "What can the votary be justly said to have lost of his present happiness? If he resides in a convent, he converses only with men whose condition is the same as his own; he has from the munificence of the founder all the necessaries of life, and is safe from that destitution which Hooker declares to be such an impediment to virtue as, till it be removed, suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care. All temptations to envy and competition are shut out from his retreat; he is not pained with the sight of unattainable dignity, nor insulted with the bluster of insolence, or the smile of forced familiarity. If he wanders abroad, the sanctity of his character amply compensates all other distinctions; he is seldom seen but with reverence, nor heard but with submission." Johnson: Rambler #202 (February 22, 1752) Link 1,632. Appearance; Desires; Happiness; Poverty "The species of happiness most obvious to the observation of others, is that which depends upon the goods of fortune; yet even this is often fictitious. There is in the world more poverty than is generally imagined; not only because many whose possessions are large have desires still larger, and many measure their wants by the gratifications which others enjoy: but great numbers are pressed by real necessities which it is their chief ambition to conceal, and are forced to purchase the appearance of competence and cheerfulness at the expence of many comforts and conveniencies of life." Johnson: Adventurer #120 (December 29, 1753) Link 1,680. Desires; Poverty "Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities." Johnson: Idler #37 (December 30, 1758) Link 1,804. Hospitality; Perspective; Poverty JOHNSON. 'Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house.'BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.'BOSWELL. 'But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.' BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out.' James Boswell: Life of Johnson Link