The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty.  The honest rich can never forget it.
G. K. Chesterton

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. 
John F.  Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961

What does love look like?  It has the hands to help others.  It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy.  It has eyes to see misery and want.  It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.  That is what love looks like.
Saint Augustine

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. 
Anatole France, The Red Lily

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.
George Bernard Shaw

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving. 
George Eliot

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.….But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Lk 6:22, 24

The first poverty among people is not to know Christ.
Pope Benedict XVI

Poverty is the schoolmaster of character.
Antiphanes

They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on, as well as the plain.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they can not repay you, but you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
Lk 14:13-14

A radical conversion of the non-poor is needed today.
Maria Augustine Neal, Sociol-Theology of Letting Go

D’you call life a bad job?  Never!  We’ve had our ups and downs, we’ve had our struggles, we’ve always been poor, but it’s been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
W.  Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. 
Seneca, Epistles

Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed. 
William Shakespeare, Othello

You know it’s funny when it rains it pours.
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.
Tupac Shakur, Keep Ya Head Up (song)

It is not enough to say that love of God is inseparable from the love of one’s neighbor.  It must be added that love of God is unavoidably expressed through love of one’s neighbor.
Gustavo Guitierrez, A Theology of Liberation

If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD  your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.   Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.  Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show your needy brother and give him nothing.  He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.  Give generously to him and do so without grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.  There will always be poor people in the land.  Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
Deut 15:7–11 (NIV)

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Emma Lazarus (found on the Statue of Liberty)

Hope is the poor man’s bread.
George Herbert

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.
W. C. Fields

He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.
Prov 14:31 (KJV)

Our vow of chastity is nothing but our undivided love for Christ in chastity, then we proceed to the freedom of poverty — poverty is nothing but freedom.  And that total surrender is obedience.  If I belong to God, if I belong to Christ, then he must be able to use me.  That is obedience.  Then we give wholehearted service to the poor.  That is service.  They complete each other.  That is our life.
Mother Teresa

I’m broke but I’m happy,
I’m poor but I’m kind
Alanis Morrissette, Hand In My Pocket (song)

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. 
Herman Melville

The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives.  To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
Henry Ford

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor
Lk 4:18

Who, being loved, is poor?
 Oscar Wilde, A Woman Of No Importance

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.
Mother Teresa

He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all.
Eleanor Roosevelt

One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, And He will repay him for his good deed.
Prov 19:17 (NASB)

The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs. 
Karl Marx

As Christians we are subject to a law higher than that of the free market.
Christopher Ringwald

No, not rich.  I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (in an interview)

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi talked to the prophet Elijah, “Where shall I find the Messiah?”
“At the gate of the City,” Elijah replied.
“How shall I recognize him?”
“He sits among the lepers.”
“Among the lepers!” cried Rabbi Joshua, “What is he doing ther?”
“He changes their bandages,” Elijah answered
“He changes them one by one.”
 Laurence Kusher quoted in Context

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.  Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth
Eccl 11:1–2, (KJV)

Love of brother means voluntary poverty… It also means nonparticipation in those comforts and luxuries which have been manufactured by the exploitation of others…. If our jobs do not contribute to the common good, we pray God for the grace to give them up… this would exclude jobs in advertising, which only increases people’s useless desires, and in insurance companies and banks, which are known to exploit the poor in this country and others.  Whatever has contributed to the misery and degradation of the poor may be considered a bad job, and not to be worked at.
Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, December 1948.

For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
James 2:2-4