BEGGING QUOTES II

quotations about beggars & begging

Look what we've come to, beggars begging from beggars.

MEL BROOKS

History of the World, Part I


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


Beggars market their incapacity.

MASON COOLEY

City Aphorisms


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 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


The petition of an empty hand is dangerous.

JOHN OF SALSBURY

Policraticus


He who begs timidly courts a refusal.

SENECA THE YOUNGER

Hippolytus


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


Never beg for mercy. Accept that you have failed. Begging is for dogs and humans.

PAOLO BACIGALUPI

The Drowned Cities


Speak with me, pity me, open the door:
A beggar begs that never begg'd before.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Richard II


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


Begging for help never gets you any.

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

A Storm of Swords


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 beggar knows much that the king can only guess.

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Way of Kings


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


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