Henri Nouwen Quotes

The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine

The difference between rich and poor", said Francie, "is that the poor do everything with thier own hands and the rich hire hands to do things.

Feed the poor and get rich or feed the rich and get poor.

Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.

Ah, if the rich were rich as the poor fancy riches.

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.

For rich people, the sky is just an extra, a gift of nature. The poor, on the other hand, can see it as it is, a gift of infinite grace.

The rich have markets, the poor have bureaucrats.

The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else,and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.

Most jury trials are contests between the rich and poor.

The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich.

The poor never estimate as a virtue the generosity of the rich.

The poor man is ruined as soon as he begins to ape the rich.

We talk of the enormous virtues of work, but it turns out that that is mostly for the poor. If you're rich enough or if you're a college professor, the virtue lies in leisure and the use you make of your leisure time.

Without class differences, England would cease to be the living theatre it is.

Don't think to come over me with th' old tale, that the rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't know, they ought to know.

When I look out [the window] at the big houses on either side of the road, it's obvious we've entered the rich side of town. Poor people don't post signs like NO TRESPASSING, PRIVATE DRIVE, PRIVATE PROPERTY, MONITORED BY CAMERA SURVEILLANCE. I should know because I've been poor my entire life, and the only person I know who ever posted a sign like these is my friend...and he actually stole the sign off a rich guy's yard.

A poor man who eats too much, as contradistinguished from a gourmand, who is a rich man who ''lives well.''

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

A poore mans Cow dies a rich mans child.

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves... It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.

When the rich [and politically powerful] make war, it's the poor [and politically weak] who die.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means -one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected; they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.

A rich man's war and a poor man's fight.