105. Poverty

Ask what is more miserable than being poor,
and the answer comes--only poverty pains like poverty.

Poverty, the cruelest of demons, deprives a man 
of every joy in this life, then takes them from the next life. 

Craving, another name for poverty, will obliterate at once 
ancestral honor and dignity of speech. 

Privation produces unmindfulness, which gives birth
to improper words, even in men of proper birth.

Poverty is that single sorrow which
gives rise to a multitude of miseries. 

Even when the poor perceive profoundly and speak skillfully,
their most meaningful words are always forgotten.

He who is impoverished and estranged from virtue will be 
regarded as a stranger even by his own mother. 

Will the wretched poverty that nearly 
killed me yesterday come again today?

Men may slumber even in the midst of fire,
but none can find repose in the midst of poverty.

Lacking a morsel of food, a man may either 
slay every desire or kill off his neighbor's salt and rice broth.