Heather Brown

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through
disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through
rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to
recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like
advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town and country
laborer to practice thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should
not be ready to show that he can live like a badly fed animal. He
should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on
the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing.
As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to
take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented
and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much to him.
He is at any rate a healthy protest. 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.”
― Oscar Wilde