1 Don't be troubled, Meg, poverty seldom daunts a sincere lover.
2 For poverty enriches those who live above it, and is a sure passport to truly hospitable spirits.
3 I may be mercenary, but I hate poverty, and don't mean to bear it a minute longer than I can help.
4 "I couldn't bear a rich husband," said Jo decidedly, adding in a softer tone, "Don't fear poverty."
5 You needn't go and tell them all our little shifts, and expose our poverty in that perfectly unnecessary way.
6 She had promised to love him for better or worse, and then she, his wife, had reproached him with his poverty, after spending his earnings recklessly.
7 But in their kindness Meg saw only pity for her poverty, and her heart felt very heavy as she stood by herself, while the others laughed, chattered, and flew about like gauzy butterflies.
8 and then and there Jo renounced her old ambition, pledged herself to a new and better one, acknowledging the poverty of other desires, and feeling the blessed solace of a belief in the immortality of love.
9 Never forgetting that by birth she was a gentlewoman, she cultivated her aristocratic tastes and feelings, so that when the opportunity came she might be ready to take the place from which poverty now excluded her.
10 Amy rather regretted that last sentence, fearing it wasn't in good taste, but Laurie liked her better for it, and found himself both admiring and respecting the brave patience that made the most of opportunity, and the cheerful spirit that covered poverty with flowers.
11 Wealth is certainly a most desirable thing, but poverty has its sunny side, and one of the sweet uses of adversity is the genuine satisfaction which comes from hearty work of head or hand, and to the inspiration of necessity, we owe half the wise, beautiful, and useful blessings of the world.
12 These attributes, in spite of poverty and the strict integrity which shut him out from the more worldly successes, attracted to him many admirable persons, as naturally as sweet herbs draw bees, and as naturally he gave them the honey into which fifty years of hard experience had distilled no bitter drop.
13 They had a long talk that night, and Meg learned to love her husband better for his poverty, because it seemed to have made a man of him, given him the strength and courage to fight his own way, and taught him a tender patience with which to bear and comfort the natural longings and failures of those he loved.