quotations about beggars & begging
Beggars may be no needier than many other classes, they are merely simpler and more outspoken in their protest against social inequalities.
HARRISON RHODES
"The Business of Begging", Harper's Weekly, December 13, 1913
The petition of an empty hand is dangerous.
JOHN OF SALSBURY
Policraticus
Look what we've come to, beggars begging from beggars.
MEL BROOKS
History of the World, Part I
Beggars market their incapacity.
MASON COOLEY
City Aphorisms
Speak with me, pity me, open the door:
A beggar begs that never begg'd before.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard II
A beggar is the child of idleness, whose life is a resolution of ease, his travel is most in the highways, and his rendezvous is commonly in an alehouse: his study is to counterfeit impotency, and his practice to couzen simplicity of charity; the juice of the malt is the liquor of his life, and at bed and board a louse is his companion: he fears no such enemy as a constable, and being acquainted with the stocks, must visit them as he goes by them: he is a drone that feeds upon the labours of the bee, and unhappily begotten, that is born for no goodness: his staff and his scrip are his walking furniture, and what he lacks in meat he will have out in drink: he is a kind of caterpillar that spoils much good fruit, and an unprofitable creature to live in a commonwealth: he is seldom handsome, and often noisesome; always troublesome, and never welcome: he prays for all, and preys upon all; begins with blessing, but ends often with cursing.... In sum, he is commonly begot in a bush, born in a barn, lives in a highway, and dies in a ditch.
NICHOLAS BRETON
The Good and the Bad
A beggar through the world am I,
From place to place I wander by.
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity!
J.R. LOWELL
The Beggar
My son, lead not a beggar's life; for better it is to die than to beg.
APOCRYPHA
Ecclesiasticus 40:28
The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.
GOTTHOLD LESSING
Nathan the Wise
A man may be reputed an able man this year, and yet be a beggar the next; it is a misfortune that happens to many men, and his former reputation will signify nothing.
SIR JOHN HOLT
Reg. v. Swendsen
The Book blameth all beggary, it banneth it thus: I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging their bread.
WILLIAM LANGLAND
Piers Plowman
Rich beggars are the subject of delightful legends in all countries.
HARRISON RHODES
"The Business of Begging", Harper's Weekly, December 13, 1913
Beggary is valiant.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
II Henry VI
Begging for help never gets you any.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
A Storm of Swords
The beggar knows much that the king can only guess.
BRANDON SANDERSON
The Way of Kings
He who begs timidly courts a refusal.
SENECA THE YOUNGER
Hippolytus
Never beg for mercy. Accept that you have failed. Begging is for dogs and humans.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI
The Drowned Cities
Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did "go from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him."
ROBERT BURTON
The Anatomy of Melancholy
BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
The peer and the beggar are often of the same family.
THOMAS PAINE
Rights of Man