Good quote. Thank you. I've always agreed with this on a certain level, but the word "poor" has a much different meaning than it did back then. Life in general was much simpler. I mean, nobody owned a car, a TV set, a computer, or a telephone. Also, the average lifespan was a lot shorter.
Even when this was written, I doubt if anyone ever "elected" to be hungry or homeless. If someone lives in a modest home, I don't consider that person poor unless he has no money, no food and can't stay warm in the winter. To me, simplicity is much different than poverty.
There are lots of profound, spiritual quotes from years gone by, but when you look deeply into the author's life, you often find that he was merely philosophizing, not living his words. For example, Henry David Thoreau, who stayed in the woods to be with nature, didn't live without warmth or food. Most of the stories about him are exaggerated. He was from a prominent family in Concord, so that would be like Paris Hilton leaving her home and moving into a 1 bedroom condo.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
When a simple life is a choice, an experiment to get away from it all, it's not the same as having no choice at all.