Mateo Alemán, fully Mateo Alemán y de Enero

The poor man is a kind of money that is not current; the subject of every idle housewife's chat; the off-scum of the people; the dust of the street, first trampled under foot and then thrown on the dunghill; in conclusion, the poor man is the rich man's ass.

That poverty which is not the daughter of the spirit is but the mother of shame and reproach; it is a disreputation that drowns all the other good parts that are in man; it is a disposition to all kind of evil; it is a man’s greatest foe.