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Begging (or, in old-fashioned terms, beggary) is to entreat earnestly, implore, or supplicate. It often occurs for the purpose of securing a material benefit, generally for a gift, donation or charitable donation. When done in the context of a public place, it is known as "panhandling", perhaps because the hand and arm are extended like the handle of a cooking implement, and not infrequently, a kitchen implement such as a pot or cup may be used.
- The destitute is the Messenger of God. Whoever denies him denies God and whoever gives him gives God.
- BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
- BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
- Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did "go from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him."
- Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I, Section II. Mem. 4. Subsect. 6.
- Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a gallop.
- Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part II, Section III. Memb. 2.
- Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-1615), Part I, Section XXI
- Idiomatic. Line: "No pidas de grado lo que puedes tomar por fuerza." Literal translation: "Never ask for what you can take by force".
- It is an affirmative command to give tzedaka to the poor of Israel. ... Anyone who sees a poor man begging alms and turns away his glance from him and does not give him tzedaka transgresses a negative command, as it is said, "You shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand to your needy brother" (Deuteronomy 15:7).
- Shlomo Ganzfried as translated by George Horowith in The Spirit of the Jewish Law (New York: 1953)
- Be they wynners or loosers,…beggers should be no choosers.
- John Heywood's Proverbs and Epigrams (1562 ed.)
- A shamefaced man makes a bad beggar.
- Homer, The Odyssey (8th century BC), chapter XVII, line 78.
- A man may be reputed an able man this year, and yet be a beggar the next; it is a misfortune that happens to many men, and his former reputation will signify nothing.
- Sir John Holt, Reg. v. Swendsen (1702), 14 How. St. Tr. 596.
- Beggars are a sure indicator that there are no Christians, or else very few and dispirited ones, in any town in which beggars are seen.
- Andreas Karlstadt, On the Removal of Images (1522), On the Removal of Images (1522), p. 120
- He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, "To get practice in being refused."
- Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 49
- Borgen ist nicht viel besser als betteln.
- Borrowing is not much better than begging.
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise (1779), II. 9.
- Der wahre Bettler ist
Doch einzig und allein der wahre König.- The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise (1779), II. 9.
- My eye no longer wells up at the shame of those who beg; my hand became too hard for the trembling of filled hands.
Where have the tears of my eye and the down of my heart gone? Oh loneliness of all bestowers! Oh muteness of all who shine!
Many suns revolve in desolate space. To everything that is dark they speak with their light – to me they are mute.
Oh this is the enmity of light toward that which shines; mercilessly it goes its orbit.
Unjust in its deepest heart toward that which shines: cold toward suns – thus every sun goes.
Like a storm the suns fly their orbit, that is their motion. They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness.
Oh it is you only, you dark ones, you nocturnal ones, who create warmth out of that which shines! Oh it is you only who drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light!
Alas, ice surrounds me, my hand burns itself on iciness! Alas, there is thirst in me that yearns for your thirst!- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1891), Night Song, translated by Adrian Del Caro
- The Gods have not ordained hunger to be our death: even to the well-fed man comes death in varied shape,
The riches of the liberal never waste away, while he who will not give finds none to comfort him,
The man with food in store who, when the needy comes in miserable case begging for bread to eat,
Hardens his heart against him, when of old finds not one to comfort him.
Bounteous is he who gives unto the beggar who comes to him in want of food, and the feeble,
Success attends him in the shout of battle. He makes a friend of him in future troubles,
No friend is he who to his friend and comrade who comes imploring food, will offer nothing.
Let the rich satisfy the poor implorer, and bend his eye upon a longer pathway,
Riches come now to one, now to another, and like the wheels of cars are ever rolling,
The foolish man wins food with fruitless labour: that food – I speak the truth – shall be his ruin,
He feeds no trusty friend, no man to love him. All guilt is he who eats with no partaker.- Rigveda, Mandala 10, Hymn 117, Ralph T. H. Griffith (Translator)
- Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act II, scene 2, line 281.
- Unless the old adage must be verified,
That beggars mounted, run their horse to death.- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 4, line 126.
- Well, whiles I am a beggar I will rail
And say, there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say, there is no vice but beggary.- William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act II, scene 1, line 593.
- I see, Sir, you are liberal in offers:
You taught me first to beg; and now, methinks,
You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act IV, scene 1, line 437.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 64-65.
- I'd just as soon be a beggar as king,
And the reason I'll tell you for why;
A king cannot swagger, nor drink like a beggar,
Nor be half so happy as I.
* * * * *
Let the back and side go bare.- Old English Folk Song. In Cecil Sharpe's Folk Songs from Somerset.
- Set a beggar on horse backe, they saie, and hee will neuer alight.
- Robert Greene, Card of Fancie. Heywood—Dialogue. Claudianus—Eutropium. I. 181. Shakespeare—True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, scene 3. Henry VI, IV. 1. Ben Jonson—Staple of News, Act IV. See also collection of same in Bebel—Proverbia Germanica, Suringar's ed. (1879). No. 537.
- To get thine ends, lay bashfulnesse aside;
Who feares to aske, doth teach to be deny'd.- Robert Herrick, No Bashfulnesse in Begging.
- Mieux vaut goujat debout qu'empereur enterré.
- Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
- Jean de La Fontaine, La Matrone d'Ephèse.
- A beggar through the world am I,
From place to place I wander by.
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity.- James Russell Lowell, The Beggar.
- A pampered menial drove me from the door.
- Thomas Moss, The Beggar. (Altered by Goldsmith from "A Liveried Servant," etc.).
- It is better for any of you to carry a load of firewood on his own back than to beg from someone else.
- Muhammad Riyadh-Us-Saleheen, Chapter 59, hadith 540
- Qui timide rogat,
Docet negare.- He who begs timidly courts a refusal.
- Seneca the Younger, Hippolytus, II. 593.
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