Sol Campbell Quotes

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

When I was around 18, I got kicked out of my parents' house, and I wasn't allowed to take anything with me. I slept on YMCA towels for a whole semester in university before my father found out and bought me a mattress. I felt really free because I was finally living on my own, but I was also really depressed because I had nothing.

I think what I came from and what I saw molded me into a certain person. Nothing was ever wrapped or a silver spoon, so I don't think I would know how to live and I don't think I'd want to live if it wasn't a grind.

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

I'm trying to set up opportunities for myself so that I don't only have one outlet to go through and rely upon as far as a support system financially, emotionally and mentally.

It wasn't poverty that drove me on.

I've always found poverty a source of strength.

I grew up in Nacogdoches, Texas... raised by my grandmother. We were very poor and had no indoor plumbing. My grandmother was a very religious woman, though, and she gave me a lot of faith and inner strength.

Poverty is the schoolmaster of character.

I had to fend for myself from the time I was 17 years old. I was a high-school dropout. I wasn't quite living on the streets, but I didn't have a lot of hope.

As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.

When my trust fund ran out, I panicked. I have a lot of admiration for the kids who come to the big city with nothing and make it.

I was homeless for about 8 months, I refused to live with my dad or anyone for that matter. So I stayed somewhere that had no hot water, ever, no heat, I told myself I have to be strong and get through it on my own.

Independence feels like a luxury, where the reality is that it's hard to survive financially for so many people out there.

I come from a simple background, so I couldn't call my father and say, 'Come pay my bills,' so I had to get out there and work.

People who I've encountered who have had more given to them, they tend to be more disappointed and unable to carry on when something doesn't go their way, and that's not my parents.

Poverty dictated my childhood. But there were benefits as well: I became independent, more mature than my peers, and I realized that money is not the most important thing in life.

I think if I had gone to a private school and been coddled a little bit, I wouldn't be as tough as I am now.

I don't want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

The only way to live in any true security is to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do not have far to drop, you do not have much to lose.

In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal... I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day. Didn't have power, didn't have generators, studied with lanterns, but I never despaired.

Why me? Why did this happen? How could I be in Westlife and then have nothing to show for it financially at the end of it? But it's like, why not me? That's just life. It's tough. There's a lot more problems in the world. There are a lot of people who would wish to God they had my problem instead of having a sick child.

I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.

I've been homeless on a few occasions.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.