Top 100 The Beggar Quotes
#1. A beggar's mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king's mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity.
R. Scott Bakker
#2. -Fiona, this is my mate, Frank Begbie. Or Franco. Or Beggars. Or the Beggar Boy. Or the Generalissmo. Or Psychotic Bullying Prick.
Irvine Welsh
#3. So potter with potter contendeth: the hewer of wood with the hewer of wood: the beggar is jealous of the beggar, the ministrel is jealous of the ministrel.
Alexander William Mair
#4. The earth opens impartially her bosom to receive the beggar and the prince.
Horace
#5. I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
Ben Hecht
#6. Every fulfilled wish we wrest from the world is really like alms that keep the beggar alive today so that he can starve again tomorrow.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#8. Sit with a merchant or sit with a beggar, and it'll always be the beggar who buys your first drink.
R. Scott Bakker
#9. A thirst for gold, The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm The meanest hearts.
Lord Byron
#10. Meanwhile, life passes on and time runs out. The culture of wanting more simply for the sake of more can occupy a person for an entire lifetime. But in the end, life is over. It terminates for the beggar and the affluent just the same, whether one is old or young, rich or poor, happy or sad.
Hamza Yusuf
#11. We are so addicted, either to materialism or to transcending material reality, that we don't see God right in front of us, in the beggar, the starving child, the brokenhearted woman; in our friend; in the cat; in the flea. We miss it, and in missing it, we allow the world to be destroyed.
Andrew Harvey
#12. Rulers exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
Ayn Rand
#13. True that life is given,
And received. But truer still:
The single-act of giving
Makes the offerer the beggar, too -
Edith L. Tiempo
#14. Wait! Wait!" The beggar called out from behind her. "I can see! I'm healthy!" Hilda smiled to herself, pleased. "You just took away my livelihood! Do you have any idea how hard it is out here for a healthy beggar?" The man sounded almost angry.
J.L. Langland
#15. I know that man who shows me his wealth
is like the beggar who shows me his poverty;
they are both looking for alms from me,
the rich man for the alms of my envy,
the poor one for the alms of my guilt.
Ben Hecht
#16. Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.
Charles Lamb
#17. What brings understanding is love. When your heart is full, then you will listen to the teacher, to the beggar, to the laughter of children, to the rainbow, and to the sorrow of man. Under every stone and leaf, that which is eternal exists.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#18. It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.
Agnes Repplier
#20. A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness.
Peter Wessel Zapffe
#21. Sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public.
Jean Baudrillard
#22. I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land
every color, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike
all snored in the same language.
Malcolm X
#23. All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.
Walter Benjamin
#25. For I suspect the next world will more plainly be a going on with this than most people think - only it will be much better for some, and much worse for others, as the Lord has taught us in the parable of the rich man and the beggar.
George MacDonald
#26. In the race for wealth, a neighbor tries to outdo his neighbor, but this strife is good for men. For the potter envies potter, and the carpenter the carpenter, and the beggar rivals the beggar, and the singer the singer.
Hesiod
#27. In the morning, I wake up and salute the sun. I am grateful for the sun; it gives me hope that after every scary night it will rise to brighten me - The Beggar's Dance.
Farida Somjee
#28. Modern society calls the beggar bum and panhandler and gives him the bum's rush. But the Greeks used to say that people in need are the ambassadors of the gods
Peter Maurin
#29. Don't change the beggar into a conqueror, because it was the beggar who led you to conquest.
Witold Gombrowicz
#31. Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
William Shakespeare
#32. Indolent and unworthy the beggar may be - but that is not your concern: It is better, said Joseph Smith, to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition.
Hugh Nibley
#33. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon the same level, and the beggar who suns himself by the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
Adam Smith
#34. It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound.
Saint Ambrose
#35. Let the beggar speak for himself. He's in earnest. Haven't we been bred on the principle of self-sacrifice, till we've come to think a man's self is his uncleanest possession?
Bernard Capes
#36. Faith is like the hand of the beggar that takes the gift while adding nothing to it.
Thomas Chalmers
#37. If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.
Saint John Chrysostom
#38. Watching people just look out for themselves, I think, is extremely interesting. It goes right back to something like 'The Beggar's Opera' - the underbelly of society, how it operates, and how that reflects their so-called betters.
Peter Mullan
#39. No more than he knew that the Beggar King would die young, or that Khal Drogo would follow him into the grave. Very little of what the fat man has anticipated has come to pass.
George R R Martin
#40. I cannot help it; reason has nothing to do with it; I love her against reason-but who would as soon love me for my own sake, as she would love the beggar at the corner.
Charles Dickens
#41. But the man of independent feeling, except he be thus your friend, will not unlikely resent your compassion, while the beggar will accept it chiefly as a pledge for something more to be got from you; and so it will tend to keep him in beggary.
George MacDonald
#42. From the king
To the beggar, by gradation, all are servants;
And you must grant, the slavery is less
To study to please one, than many.
Philip Massinger
#43. The poor man commands respect; the beggar must always excite anger.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#44. The beggar is the only person in the universe not obliged to study appearance.
Don Herold
#45. A brigand, a barber, a beggar, two orphans, and a boy whore. With such do we defend the realms of men.
George R R Martin
#46. The public has no idea that writing is a disease, and that the writer who publishes is like a beggar who exhibits his sores.
Michael Kruger
#47. Who, in the midst of just provocation to anger, instantly finds the fit word which settles all around him in silence is more than wise or just; he is, were he a beggar, of more than royal blood, he is of celestial descent.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
#49. Non-possession does not mean having nothing. It does not mean to live as a penniless beggar. Rather than meaning having nothing, it is the idea of not possessing what we do not need. The more we possess, The more we have attachments.
Boep Joeng
#50. Dusk shrouds the long and useless day.
Even the hope it denied us crumbles
To nothing ... Life is a drunken beggar
Holding out his hand to his own shadow.
Fernando Pessoa
#51. Remember, frustration is out of expectation, and ego is always expecting. The ego is a beggar.
Rajneesh
#52. Give a beggar a dime and he'll bless you. Give him a dollar and he'll curse you for withholding the rest of your fortune. Poverty is a bag with a hole at the bottom.
Anzia Yezierska
#53. Just a little relaxation, just a little looking inwards, and the doors of immense potentialities open up. You are no more a beggar. Without conquering the world you have conquered the whole universe. Just conquer yourself.
Rajneesh
#54. I NEVER lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod;
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!
Angels, twice descending,
Reimbursed my store.
Burglar, banker, father,
I am poor once more!
Emily Dickinson
#55. Getting love is a very small experience. It is the experience of beggar.
Rajneesh
#56. You are the honoured guest,
Do not weep like a beggar
For pieces of the world.
Rumi
#57. Sadder than destitution, sadder than a beggar is the man who eats alone in public. Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honor of sharing or disputing each other's food.
Jean Baudrillard
#58. You know your real nature [to be divine]. You are the king and play you are a beggar ... It is all fun. Know it and play. That is all there is to it. Then practice it. The whole universe is a vast play.
Swami Vivekananda
#59. Are there not, dear Michael, Two points in the adventure of the diver,- One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge; One, when a prince he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge.
Robert Browning
#60. What good was owning the world when he'd have no choice except to defend himself against every person in it? Personally, he'd rather be a beggar with one true friend than a prince surrounded by two-faced assassins.' (Aiden)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#61. We serve the world as one beggar telling other beggars where we found bread.
Chuck Collins
#62. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority-a dog's obeyed in office.
William Shakespeare
#63. I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools.
Robert Hunter
#64. I'll be any man you want. A king or a beggar or a farmer or a killer. But I'll never be the man who can let you walk away.
Kit Rocha
#66. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to ask alms of a stranger when you've never done it before, what a psychological barrier separates the honest man from the panhandler. ("Dusk To Dawn")
Cornell Woolrich
#67. As I moved about the room I would encounter that silver wedge of a moon at this window or that, like some old beggar who wished to be invited in.
George Saunders
#68. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
Adam Smith
#69. The irony of man's fate reflected in his image: that all men, from beggar to emperor, from harlot to queen, from ragged clerk to Pope, must come to this. No matter what their poverty or power in life, all is vanity, equalized by death.
Barbara W. Tuchman
#70. From beggar to thief is one step, but a step in two directions at the same time, for what a beggar loses in morality when he becomes a thief he regains in self-respect.
Angela Carter
#71. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
O. Henry
#72. The shoulders of a borrower are always a little straighter than those of a beggar.
Morris L. Ernst
#73. Over the last 10 years, India's perception has gone from being a beggar country to an economic superpower.
Vivek Wadhwa
#74. As one person put it, passing on the good news is simply a matter of one beggar telling another where to find bread. That
Iain M. Duguid
#75. A beggar through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, For Christ's sweet sake and charity.
James Russell Lowell
#77. Shyness is a luxury reserved for those who are above the poverty line. To a beggar, being shy is deadly.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#78. I have known exile and a wild passion Of longing changing to a cold ache. King, beggar and fool , I have been all by turns, Knowing the body's sweetness, the mind 's treason ; Taliesin still, I show you a new world , risen, Stubborn with beauty , out of the heart 's need .
R.S. Thomas
#79. The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.
Philip Neri
#80. The truth is that climate alarmism has become the most expensive, and the most wasteful, project in the history of the world. It is junk economics built on junk science. It amounts to no more than hot air, yet it looks set to beggar our grandchildren.
Roger Helmer
#81. A beggar who goes fishing may use a worm which has feasted on a king as his bait. And the fisherman may eat the fish caught with that bait. What does this tells us? Well, it tells us that a king may progress through the guts of a pauper.
John Marsden
#82. I would much rather be the trusting child of a rich Father, than a beggar at the door of worldly men.
Corrie Ten Boom
#83. He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.
Rudyard Kipling
#84. A ragamuffin knows he's only a beggar at the door of God's mercy.
Brennan Manning
#85. Understanding begets empathy and compassion even for the meanest beggar - Oromis
Christopher Paolini
#86. Meditation, perhaps, is the only alchemy that can transform a beggar into an emperor.
Rajneesh
#87. You're always begging things to love you," he said, "as if you were a beggar for love. Even the flowers, you have to fawn on them
D.H. Lawrence
#88. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.
William Shakespeare
#89. Make of the Silence your to-do tasks, of the compassion your wealth and of the meditation your beggar's bowl.
Guru Nanak
#90. There is a saying in Tibetan that "at the door of the miserable rich man sleeps the contented beggar". The point of this saying is not that poverty is a virtue, but that happiness does not come with wealth, but from setting limits to one's desires, and living within those limits with satisfaction.
Dalai Lama
#91. Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death.
Jacoby Shaddix
#92. Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty-the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.
Mason Cooley
#93. A piece of bread,
some fresh water,
the shadow of a tree and your eyes, my beloved.
No sultan is happier than me,
no beggar more sad.
Omar Khayyam
#94. Then, after picking up his papers, Pierre began: "A beautiful woman can be the downfall of a gentleman . . . but the uplift of a beggar!
Ted Anthony Roberts
#95. Poor France, thy fine climate, rich vineyards, and the wishes of the learned avail nothing; thou art a destitute beggar, and not the powerful friend thou wert represented to me.
John James Audubon
#96. Africa must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars.
James Shikwati
#97. The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head and he picks it up and buy victuals with it, the physical effect is good. But with respect to me the action is very wrong.
Samuel Johnson
#98. Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot! A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
George Bernard Shaw
#99. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar - his life has been a success.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#100. A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be saidto have arrived at self-possession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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