Poverty is a funny phenomenon. It is always defined financially and always relative to what other people earn. It is possible to be extremely happy despite having little money and being officially categorised as poverty-stricken. You can also be really unhappy despite earning a high salary. Those who always want something more will always live in poverty, regardless of how much they earn, while those who are content with what they have will always feel they have an abundance. Most poverty in the UK isn't material poverty, it's spiritual poverty, a state of mind in which fulfilment comes only from the pursuit of material gain. Mark Boyle
About This Quote

No matter how much money you have, if you don't have peace of mind, your life will be meaningless. The old saying "Money can't buy happiness" is true, but it is only because money doesn't buy peace of mind. It's not so much that money can't buy happiness, but that having more money doesn't make you happier. A study published in the journal Science found that while money cannot buy happiness, it can buy mental health. The study found some people who earn relatively less than others are actually happier than people who earn more.

Source: The Moneyless Man: A Year Of Freeconomic Living

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. <span style="margin:15px;... - Neil Gaiman

  2. Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth,... - Unknown

  3. The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who... - Mother Teresa

  4. Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. - Woody Allen

  5. Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. - Mother Teresa

More Quotes By Mark Boyle
  1. Earning money from, and supporting, a system that keeps these people in poverty in the first place and then gives them some of the profits in the form of "strings-attached" aid or World Bank and IMF loans is no more ridiculous than Shell or Esso...

  2. Poverty is a funny phenomenon. It is always defined financially and always relative to what other people earn. It is possible to be extremely happy despite having little money and being officially categorised as poverty-stricken. You can also be really unhappy despite earning a high...

  3. We're at a crucial point in history. We cannot have fast cars, computers the size of credit cards, and modern conveniences, whilst simultaneously having clean air, abundant rainforests, fresh drinking water and a stable climate. This generation can have one or the other but not...

Related Topics