The Poor

Well then, concerning the poor in the town and city we ought to consider their life and occupations — how, living and managing what kinds of things, they will be able not to live badly nor more meanly than the money-lenders who lend at heavy interest, knowing very well the number of days and months, and than those who own great tenement-houses and ships and many slaves;

so that we shall perhaps be compelled to cast out of the cities in our argument the dainty poor, that we may truly furnish, according to Homer, cities well inhabited, dwelt in by the blessed alone, and shall leave no free labourer, it seems, within the wall.

Nor indeed for those men did such a manner of living prove disadvantageous, nor did it produce ignoble natures of citizens, but altogether better and more temperate than the assembly-men and jurors and clerks reared later in the town, idle and at the same time vulgar.

Remember, too, that while the poor have no share in the danger of loss of property, yet fear of injury to our persons is common to all alike;

Let no one of you think, just because he observes that I am a poor man and a man of the people, that the amount I claim should be reduced.

No wonder however, if to a superficial glance, the poor should appear more litigious than he.

We think of the poor in the way of charity, for to deal out charity gratifies not only benevolence, but pride.

Mark well, that of all sorts of men, it is the poor, and they the more certainly in proportion to their poverty, that are despoiled in this way of the protection of the law:

And on the eighth day, returning to the palace, he distributed all the wealth and the moneys to the poor, so that not one of those in need was left out"

And that night, coming to the little house of a certain poor man, he cast off the garments wrapped about him and gave them to the poor man as his last act of well-doing;

Then, dividing them into small pieces, he distributes them to the poor, thus making useful the useless things;

the happiness of the well-to-do appears in expenditure and in distributing wealth in its proper direction, I mean that he should use it where he ought and as he ought and with whom he ought, and the happiness of the poor appears in patience and in bearing up as he ought and in the condition in which he ought and with whom he ought.