H. L. Mencken Quotes

Poverty ennobles no one; it brutalizes common people and makes them hungry and old.

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.

Poverty snatches the reins out of the hand of piety.

Poverty palls the most generous spirits; it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.

The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

Poverty is no vice, but an inconvenience.

Poverty is what we call the extremes at the bottom.

The worst thing about poverty is not the actual living of it, but the shame of it.

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

I would say that many of the characters in my stories do not live in true poverty - they are not out on the street; they are not wondering if there will be anything to eat in the next week. They are people who are at the lower echelons of the economic strata.

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.

How can anyone live off of minimum wage?

I was very poor and I was a waitress, and it's hard to be a poor waitress in New York.

There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty.

I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Maybe poverty is a special case of something else. That something else is 'scarcity,' and anyone who has the experience of 'having very little' experiences the same psychology.

Does anyone really believe it is possible to make even the most basic ends meet on $5.15 an hour?

Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

Right now, America's middle class is struggling to meet their basic needs.

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

It is unacceptable that someone can work full time - and work hard - and not be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

… mankind will no longer passively submit to crushing poverty with its effects of death, disease, and decline.