Honore de Balzac Quotes

Poverty snatches the reins out of the hand of piety.

The tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self denial.

Poverty's potential for character building is far overrated.

My father died when I was two years old. But my mother was quite capable. She raised three children with his war pension which was peanuts. Yet we did not want for anything. We grew up with a certain parsimony, which is a nice thing. Then if life gives you more good, otherwise you get used to. I'm still thrifty.

Having grown up in dire poor, the thing that I hated the most in life was poverty.

I've experienced poverty and plenty, and there's a lesson to be learned when you're brought up in poverty.

As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occurred, my parents would have given me my college education. As it was, I had to scrabble for it.

There is no education like adversity.

Poverty is not a disgrace, but it's terribly inconvenient.

I can go back to poverty if a situation comes. I have sailed through the worst days of my life, and I am prepared for any crisis.

What hurts me most is poverty, and that's what led me to become a rebel.

I grew up poor. My mother raised a family of four on between $9,000 and $15,000 a year.

Being poor is only romantic in books.

It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat, if I neglect my business this year as well as last.

Poverty is the step-mother of genius.

You never know how you'll turn out till you've been down to half a dollar and no prospects.

Economy, the poor man's mint.

Poverty urges us to do and suffer anything that we may escape from it, and so leads us away from virtue.

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.

Poverty made a sound like a wet cough in the shadows of the room.

I grew up poor. I had no money. My family was poor. There's things I wanted to do and couldn't. I was an abused wife. Just - there's tons of things that I couldn't even mention. And for me to come up and to have all of this fame and fortune, it's just - it is a Cinderella story to me.

Adversity makes a man wise, not rich.

Poverty sits by the cradle of all our great men and rocks all of them to manhood.

There is little favorable to be said about poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship.