Quote#Money & Wealth
The rights of the poor majority are pure air and pure water, and…
Quote bySamuel Palmer · 1805–1881
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to the Rev. J.P. Wright (1879), from The Life and letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher (AH Palmer, London, 1892).
English (original)
The rights of the poor majority are pure air and pure water, and sufficient space to walk about in, when the rich minority are befouling the air with manufactories, poisoning the rivers, and as in the neighborhood of Foots Cray and St. Mary's, adding "field to field, till there be no place" left, and the villagers cannot step out of the dusty high-road without a trespass..
— Samuel Palmer
More from Samuel Palmer
The "rights of man" are the right of the less voracious to restrain those who are more so.
When less than four years old I was standing with my nurse, Mary Ward, watching the shadows on the wall from branches of an elm behind which the moon had risen. I have never forgot those shadows and am often trying to paint them.
It seems to me the charm of etching is the glimmering through of the white paper even in the shadows so that almost everything sparkles or suggest sparkles.
I hope to begin a new plan... not sitting down to local matter but walking and watching.
Rural poetry is the pleasure ground of those who live in cities.
I don't suffer much from solitude in the evenings. I spring upon my books. I always spoke a good word for solitude, and it is grateful to me. Books ward off the ghastly thoughts.