People never knew we were poor, but out of that poverty came the most incredible inventions - board games, recipes... we never stopped inventing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If we were poor, we didn't know it 'cause I guess you don't miss what you never had. So, you know, we made do with whatever. We used to make our own toys, and we used to play with spinning tops and marbles. A pocket full of marbles, and you were rich - you didn't worry about no money.
People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others.
We were poor, but we didn't know it. There were no government bureaus in those days presuming to determine where poorness begins and ends, but I don't remember ever being hungry.
In my experience, poor people are the world's greatest entrepreneurs. Every day, they must innovate in order to survive. They remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income.
In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.
I do remember how it was to be poor. I do remember that in my early years, we had to grow and raise all of our food, even our animals. And I remember in my early life, we didn't even have electricity. So it was very, very hard times then.
We were so poor as kids. I didn't even see a bathtub, running water, hot water, commode - we didn't have any of that. We started with a humble log house, milk cow, garden-raised our own food, killed a hog every year in the fall, and had the meat hanging up in the smokehouse - that was our childhood, me and ol' Si.
The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it's only money... they don't know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.
I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn't know it then.
We were rather poor, but we always had what we needed.
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