Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
—Plato
Poverty is the open-mouthed relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized society. And it is hell enough.
—Henry George
There is inherited wealth in this country and also inherited poverty.
—John F. Kennedy
I think it's helpful to remind white ethnics that they, too, came here in boats; that they, too, lived in slums; that they, too, had yellow fever; that they, too, were stigmatized as incorrigible; that they, too, had the highest homicide rates and the highest incarceration rates and the highest rates of mental illness; and that everything that was said about them in those days is now being said about Salvadorans, Dominicans, African Americans, Mexicans, Vietnamese, and Cambodians in our inner cities.
—Tom Hayden
I've been poor and I've been rich. Rich is better.
—Beatrice Kaufman
Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
—Kahlil Gibran