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Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.

Poverty

All is lost when the people fear death less than poverty.Chinese.

A narrow fortune is a cramp to a great mind.L’Estrange.

A threadbare coat is armor proof against highwaymen.

Bear wealth—poverty will bear itself.

Better be poor than wicked.

Better poor with honor than rich with shame.Dutch.

Deep draughts and long morning slumbers soon make a man poor.Danish.

Do not through fear of poverty surrender liberty. (Fable of the horse and the stag.)

Every one likes to wipe his shoes on poverty.German.

Hard is the path from poverty to renown.Latin.

He bears poverty very ill who is ashamed of it.

He becometh poor who dealeth with a slack hand.Bible.

He has no share in the sun, i.e., is abjectly poor.Modern Greek.

He whose expenses exceed his receipts shall come to poverty.Sri Lankan.

His wit got wings and would have flown,
But poverty still kept him down.

Honest poverty is thinly sown.French.

How many sink into the sordid hut of cheerless poverty.Thomson.

If you would grow poor without perceiving it employ workmen and go to sleep.Portuguese.

It is hard to find one who bears poverty with a noble spirit.Aristides.

It is more easy to praise poverty than to bear it.Italian.

It is no sin to be poor.German.

Kin or no kin, woe to him who has nothing.Italian.

My poverty, not my will, consents.Shakespeare.

No better masters than poverty and want.Dutch.

No man lives so poor as he was born.

Nothing to be got without pains but poverty.

Old age and poverty are two heavy burthens, either is enough.German.

Pain, distress, and poverty have frightful looks.Locke.

Poverty and hunger have many learned disciples.German.

Poverty and love are hard to hide.

Poverty breeds strife.

Poverty craves many things, but avarice more.Italian.

Poverty has no kin.Italian.

Poverty has no shame.Spanish.

Poverty is a complication of evils.

Poverty is a good that all men hate.German.

Poverty is a shirt of fire.Turkish.

Poverty is a sort of leprosy.French.

Poverty is cunning, it catches even a fox.German.

Poverty is death in another form.Latin.

Poverty is no shame, but being ashamed of it is.German.

Poverty is no sin.French, Spanish.

Poverty is no sin, but it is a branch of roguery.Spanish.

Poverty is no sin, but it is terribly inconvenient.

Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it is the effect of idleness, intemperance, prodigality and folly.Plutarch.

Poverty is shamefully borne by a sluggard.

Poverty is shamed and persecuted all over the globe.Lucan.

Poverty is the daughter of laziness.German.

Poverty is the mother of all arts.Italian.

Poverty is the mother of health.

Poverty is the reward of idleness.Dutch.

Poverty is the sister of a sound mind.

Poverty is the sixth sense.German.

Poverty is the worst guard to chastity.

Poverty makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows.

Poverty makes a man mean.

Poverty never sped well in love.Portuguese.

Poverty on an old man’s back is a heavy burthen.

Poverty parteth friends (or fellowship).

Poverty shows us who are our friends and who are our enemies.Latin.

Poverty trieth friends.

Pride and poverty are ill met yet often together.

Prison and Lent were made for the poor.Spanish.

The poverty of the poor shall be at an end when they shall learn to minister to the wants of each other.Sri Lankan.

The worst part of poverty is to bear it impatiently.

Their rise is one of difficulty whose minds are impeded by poverty.Latin.

They only are ashamed of poverty who are poor against their will.Aristides.

Though poverty bring sorrow, riches create inquietude.

To be poor the Greeks did not hold scandalous unless it was due to one’s own indiscretion.Fielding.

To be poor without being free is the worst state into which man can fall.French.

To feed many persons and to build many houses is the readiest way to poverty.Greek.

Unmanly poverty subdues the heart,
Cankers each wound and sharpens every dart.Callinachus.

When money is sent flying out of the window, it’s poverty comes in at the door.

Who doth sing so merry a note,
As he who cannot change a groat?