Poor Relief Quotes

I applaud the growing commitment of Evangelicals to the needs of the poor and oppressed in urban America.

[Describing France:] Every place swarms with beggars ... because the Poor depend upon private Charity for Support, instead of being provided for by Parishes as in England or Towns in America.

The Trustees intend to relieve such unfortunate persons as cannot subsist here [England], and establish them in an orderly manner, so as to form a well regulated town…. By such a Colony, many families, who would otherwise starve, will be provided for, and made masters of houses and lands…. The Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America. … are impowered to collect benefactions; and lay them out in cloathing, arming, sending over, and supporting colonies of the poor, whether subjects on foreigners, in Georgia

The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor.

President Obama's recommended reduction in the tax deduction for charitable giving reflects his fundamental belief that only the government can or should help the poor. He wants to keep the impoverished directly dependent on the government - and the Democratic Party - for their daily bread.

There was no welfare state, and people had to rely mainly on the Poor Law - that was all the state provided. It was very degrading, very humiliating. And there was a means test for receiving poor relief.

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.

Our bishops storehouses are not intended to stock enough commodities to care for all the members of the Church. Storehouses are only established to care for the poor and the needy. For this reason, members of the Church have been instructed to personally store a year's supply of food, clothing, and, where possible, fuel. By following this counsel, most members will be prepared and able to care for themselves and their family members, and be able to share with others as may be needed.

It's not the job of government to help the poor. The church is the mechanism that God put on earth to help the poor.

Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless.

Worrying about the poor is one thing. To contend that equality is necessary for growth is an altogether different and more radical idea.

An act to provide for the education of the poor, gratis

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.

Portsmouth has the honor, I believe, of establishing the first recorded pauper workhouse - though not in connection with her poets, as might naturally be supposed.

Resolved that a subscription should immediately be set on foot, for the relief of such poor inhabitants of Boston as are, or may be deprived of the means of subsistence, by the act of parliament for stopping up the port at Boston.

Well-designed subsidies help the poor make the best of whatever opportunities they have; poorly designed ones either do very little or actually make things worse for them.

The second part of all his revenues, which came yearly into his possession, and was included in the receipts of the exchequer, as we mentioned a little before, he, with ready devotion, gave to God, ordering his ministers to divide it carefully into four parts, on the condition that the first part should be discreetly bestowed on the poor

The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

It is the custom of the Apostolic see to prescribe these rules to bishops when they are ordained: that all emoluments which accrue, are to be divided into four portions ;—one for the bishop and his household, for hospitality and entertainment of guests; another for the clergy; a third for the poor; and the fourth for the repair of churches.

Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.

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

Every laborer, when possessing most strength and skill, and even when also exhibiting industry and general worth of character, and however healthy, and entirely free from family or other encumbrances, still is regarded by every poor-rate payer and by every parish official as a prospective pauper; or one who, though not yet chargeable to the parish, will surely become so thereafter, when his health fails, or old age approaches, if not much sooner. The most independent laborer regards himself in the same light of a pauper in a state of transition.

The code of poor laws has at length grown up into a tree, which, like the fabulous Upas, overshadows and poisons the land; unwholesome expedients were the bud, dilemmas and depravities have been the blossom, and danger and despair are the bitter fruit.

… if he is in Want, you must relieve him if you can, or else direct him how he may be relieved; you must employ him some days, or else recommend him to be employ’d. But you are not charged to do beyond your ability, only to prefer a poor Brother, that is a good Man and true before any other poor People in the same Circumstance.

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