Ishikawa Takuboku 石川啄木
1910 · Meiji Japan
I work and work, and still my life gets no easier. I stare at my hands.
はたらけど
はたらけど猶わが生活楽にならざり
ぢっと手を見るTanka collection A Handful of Sand (Ichiaku no suna)
More from Ishikawa Takuboku · #money
In the same thread
Du Fu 杜甫
759 · Tang China
Afraid of the shame of an empty purse, I keep one coin, just to look at.
囊空恐羞澀，留得一錢看。"Empty Purse," in the Complete Tang Poems
Ozaki Hosai 尾崎放哉
1926 · Taisho Japan
No bowl to hold it. I take it in both hands.
入れものが無い両手で受けるFree-verse haiku, in Selected Haiku of Ozaki Hosai
Ibgatum
c. 18th–17th century BC · Babylonia
As, my lord, thou hast heard, the enemy has carried off my oxen. Never before have I sent to thee, my lord. Now I have caused a letter to be brought to thee, my lord. Do thou, my lord, send me one young cow.A clay-tablet letter to his master · in place of the original: the English translation by C. H. W. Johns (1904)
Luo Yin 羅隱
later 9th century · Tang China
When it has gathered from a hundred flowers and made the honey, for whom was all the toil, for whom the sweetness?
採得百花成蜜後，爲誰辛苦爲誰甜。"Bees," in the Complete Tang Poems
Charles Dickens
1850 · London, England · Mr. Micawber, just out of debtors' prison, to the young David. He adds that in short you are for ever floored, as he is himself
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
David Copperfield, chapter 12, Mr. Micawber's advice
Louisa May Alcott
1869 · Concord, Massachusetts, USA
Paid up all the debts, thank the Lord!--every penny that money can pay,--and now I feel as if I could die in peace. My dream is beginning to come true; and if my head holds out I'll do all I once hoped to do.
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