A Quote by Oscar Wilde

As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

Oscar Wilde

Quote Topics

Admire Also Bad Birthright Cannot Course Enemy Extraordinarily Made Must Pity Poor Possibly Private Sold Stupid Terms Them Very Virtuous

Quote Author

Oscar Wilde
Irish - Poet
October 16, 1854 - November 30, 1900

As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.

Oscar Wilde

To regard states of distress in general as an objection, as something which must be abolished is the greatest nonsense on earth; having the most disastrous consequences, fatally stupid- almost as stupid as a wish to abolish bad weather - out of pity for the poor.

Friedrich Nietzsche

My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that after all I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage

James Weldon Johnson

It is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees.

Oscar Wilde

When men are about to commit, or sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.

Charles Dickens

Of course 'we humans' have a funny relationship with the beings with whom we share our planet. We eat them, we care for them, we admire them, we use them.

April Gornik

People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorifying in becoming victimized by them.

Thomas Szasz

Even as a kid, I was a businessman. I figured out that if you plucked all the berries off my neighbor's tree and smashed them up, they made a Nickelodeon Gak-type consistency. I sold them to all the neighborhood kids and made stacks of quarters. Of course, the berries were poisonous, and I got in all types of trouble.

Adam DeVine

I was more of kind (who was better at) building businesses and selling them. That was a big thing for me. I was very good at that. I wasn't good as a boss. I was either your best friend or your worst enemy. I didn't balance the two very well. (So) I sold them.

Drew Waters

Contribute to charitable projects like the printing of spiritual books so that they can be sold at a lower price. Poor people will then be able to buy and read them. In this way we can help to cultivate spiritual culture in them also.

Mata Amritanandamayi

One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, and so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent.

May Sarton

Verily, I do not like them, the merciful who feel blessed in their pity: they are lacking too much in shame. If I must pity, at least I do not want it known; and if I do pity, it is preferably from a distance.

Friedrich Nietzsche

So Pa sold the little house. He sold the cow and calf. He made hickory bows and fastened them upright to the wagon box. Ma helped him stretch white canvas over them.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

My perspective is never gonna change on that... We've got to do a much better job to take care of poor people, because you cannot put all the poor people in bad neighborhoods, send them to bad schools, and say, 'Good luck in life.' That's just not right.

Charles Barkley

The rich nations of the world are acting like ancient usurers, lending money to the desperate poor on terms that cannot possibly be met and, thus, steadily acquiring more and more control over the lives and assets of the poor.