Begging For A Quote

While working on this project, I compiled a collection of quotes about begging. It's an interesting mix, I think. Lots of differing ideas and views of the whole concept. I've got my favorites - which ones do you like?

I adopted a begging posture that suggested genteel poverty combined with a certain affable nonchalance. People found this irresistible. They lavished money on me. Within days I exceeded ten dollars an hour. I began to save money and even, following Blue’s lead, tithed to the less fortunate. I became less pessimistic, thought less about how cruel the streets can be. I actually considered begging a legitimate career possibility.
~Sol Luckman

Begging is much more difficult than it looks. Contrary to popular belief, it’s a high art form that takes years of dedicated practice to master.
~Sol Luckman

It takes money to make money, even begging. Humans are herd animals. If a stranger’s bleeding to death beside the road, most people won’t stop to offer a Band-Aid. But get the ball rolling with a couple Good Samaritans, and before you know it you’ve got more eager philanthropists than you know what to do with.
~Sol Luckman

Never stand begging for what you have the power to earn.
~Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a coward.
~Jack Handy

As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.
~Oscar Wilde

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.
~St. Francis of Assisi

Remain hungry but do not start begging.
~Turkish Proverb

He who will not apply himself to business, eventually discovers that he means to get his bread by cheating, stealing, or begging, or else is wholly void of reason.
~Ischomachus

I think I mentioned to Bob [Geldof] I could make love for eight hours. What I didn't say was that this included four hours of begging and then dinner and a movie.
~Sting

O Nanak, it is absurd to ask to be spared from pain by begging for comfort.
~Sri Guru Granth Sahib

You are far away from some, and You are close to others. Without You, there is not even a place to stand begging. See this yourself and verify it in your mind.
~Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
~Doris Lessing

Take pity on me, O my Lord, Merciful to the meek. I am a beggar, begging for the dust of the feet of the Holy. Servant Nanak begs for this gift, let me meditate on the Lord, forever and ever.
~Sri Guru Granth Sahib

I do not ask you much:
I beg cold comfort.
~William Shakespeare

I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
~Luke 16:3

'I adopted the old Navajo Indian trick of screaming and begging.'
Wisecracking in the face of adversity.
~Bob Hope

I would willingly stand at street corners, hat in hand, begging passers-by to drop their unused minutes into it.
~Bernard Berenson

The path of begging will always result in our being treated as an underdog and we have been treated as such for too long.
~Cde Mugabe

I'm used to fixing stuff. I'm not used to begging for money. It chokes me.
~Jan Caldwell

Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
~Jean de la Fontaine

Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a gallop.
~Henry Burton

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
~Delores Ibarruri

At this point, I'm laying on the floor begging God that if he just makes this work, I'll be good forever.
~PC World

All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate...
~Walter Benjamin

God ordains that beggars should beg for greatness, as for all else, when greatness shines out of them, and they don't know it.
~Georges Bernanos

Beggars should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

If begging should unfortunately be thy lot, knock at the large gates only.
~Arabian Proverb

I don't know who you are, but when this night's over you'll be begging for mercy!
~Monney,from Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.
~William Shakespeare

And if this isn't enough to think about - there's always the post from back in 2006 - Windfall.