I think I probably have the philosophy of a poor man. You know, like maybe I'd steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes.
It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours ... that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possible starvation.
1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
Life without literature is a life reduced to penury.
Chill penury weighs down the heart itself; and though it sometimes be endured with calmness, it is but the calmness of despair.
'I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.' 'And so have I, sir,' I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. 'I could not spare the money on any account.' 'Little niggard!' said he, 'refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane.' 'Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.' 'Just let me look at the cash.' 'No, sir; you are not to be trusted.'
Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
Miserliness is the one vice that grows stronger with increasing years. It yields its sordid pleasures to the end.
Herbert used to say that he was as tight as the paper on the wall.
But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.
The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise, to what we fear of death.
