Thomas Aquinas Quotes

Alms are an inheritance and a justice which is due to the poor and which Jesus has levied upon us.

The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them.

Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance. Almsgiving is the generosity of the rich; social aid levels up social inequalities. Charity separates the rich from the poor; aid raises the needy and sets him on the same level with the rich.

Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance.

Not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth, but theirs.

If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.

The Hebrew Bible contains multiple provisions to ensure that no one would go hungry. The corners of the field, forgotten sheaves of grain, gleanings that drop from the hands of the gleaner, and small clusters of grapes left on the vine were to be given to the poor.

As Jews, we are commanded to give tzedakah - an act of justice, not charity - because it is the righteous thing to do.

If you don't improve the lives of the poor, it's not charity.

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

Charity separates the rich from the poor; aid raises the needy and sets him on the same level with the rich.

If I had the power I would steal all your royal wealth and give it to Christ’s brothers and sisters.

If all Christians and Jews tithed their income as the Bible commands, every poor person would be cared for, every naked person clothed, and every hungry person fed.

We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.

We think we do so much for the poor, but it is they who make us rich

The poor of the United States and of the world are your brothers and sisters in Christ. You must never be content to leave them just the crumbs from the feast. You must take of your substance, and not just of your abundance, in order to help them. And you must treat them like guests at your family table.

I am going to attack income inequality and I think I have a pretty good plan to do so. I don't just tell you what I'm against. I tell you what I'm for and how I would do it.

You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.

Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor.

Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.

When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.

The bread you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; the gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.

Robin Hood had it right.Humanity's deepest wish is to spread the wealth.

Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

The distribution of wealth is not determined by nature. It is determined by policy.