From Today's Sermon

Dave Anderson told an anecdote about the 17th century English Baptist pastor, John Gill, which I had not heard before. 

It concerned a talkative parishioner who told him that the band of his gown was inappropriately long, and denoted vanity.  He told her to take her scissors and cut it off to the length she thought appropriate; she did so. He then said he had had his attention called to something about her that he thought was too long. When she told him to take the scissors and cut it off to the right length, he took the scissors and said, "NOW, put out your tongue."

A Quote from Heinlein

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”