Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Beggary
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.
Beggars must be no choosers.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Scornful Lady. Act V. Sc. 3.
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.”
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. I. Sec. II. Mem. 4. Subsect. 6.
Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a gallop.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. II. Sec. III. Memb. 2.
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. Sc. 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.
Herrick—No Bashfulnesse in Begging.
Mieux vaut goujat debout qu’empereur enterré.
Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
La Fontaine—La Matrone d’Ephèse.
Borgen ist nicht viel besser als betteln.
Borrowing is not much better than begging.
Lessing—Nathan der Weise. II. 9.
Der wahre Bettler ist
Doch einzig und allein der wahre König.
The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.
Lessing—Nathan der Weise. II. 9.
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.
Lowell—The Beggar.
A pampered menial drove me from the door.
Thomas Moss—The Beggar. (Altered by Goldsmith from “A Liveried Servant,” etc.).
Qui timide rogat,
Docet negare.
He who begs timidly courts a refusal.
Seneca—Hippolytus. II. 593.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 281.
Unless the old adage must be verified,
That beggars mounted, run their horse to death.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 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.
King John. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 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.
Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 437.