It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It is a blunder, though, and is punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man - the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse - the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end.
I believe that poverty is often the result of inappropriate behavior - out-of-wedlock births, dropping out of school, crime and drugs - which should not be rewarded. But often it isn't, and common decency requires that we take care of the least of these.
Poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty thought. It is the conviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
There is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.
If poverty were a man, I would have slain him.
Poverty is the mother of crime.
Poverty is not the simple result of bad geography, bad culture, bad history. It's the result of us: of the ways that people choose to organize their societies.
Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.
In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.