I have found it difficult to keep my poverty these late years but I have not failed.

I'm about as poor as you are, I guess.

I could enjoy riches, but I want to be poor so I may not forget what is due to the people among whom I was born--you who live in small houses and rack your bones with toil.

I am one of you, although I am racking my brain instead of my bones in our common interest.

There are so many who would crowd us down we must stand together and be watchful or we shall be reduced to an overburdened, slavish peasantry, pitied and despised.