Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.
My poverty is not complete: it lacks me.
Be charitable before wealth makes you covetous.
That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.
Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.
To help the poor to a capacity for action and liberty is something essential for one's own health as well as theirs: there is a needful gift they have to offer which cannot be offered so long as they are confined by poverty.
For my own part, I have been wont to converse with poverty; and however disagreeable a companion she may be thought to be by the affluent and luxurious, who were never acquainted with her, I can live happily with her the remainder of my life if I can thereby contribute to the redemption of my country.
I beg my Children to be just and virtuous, never to disgrace my name or theirs, and then they are out of fortune's power.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving.