One half of the world knows not how the other half lives.
Meaning: Wealth and privilege create invisible barriers preventing the comfortable from understanding the daily struggles of the poor.
Origin: Rabelais wrote in Pantagruel (1532) that half the world does not know how the other half lives, and George Herbert's Outlandish Proverbs (1640) gives it in English. The photographer Jacob Riis borrowed it for How the Other Half Lives (1890), his exposé of New York's slums.
Equivalents in French, Spanish, and German
- French: La moitié du monde ne sait comment l’autre vit (literally: One half the world knows not how the other half lives)
- Spanish: El harto no cree al hambriento (literally: The well-fed man does not believe the hungry one)
- German: Der Satte glaubt dem Hungrigen nicht (literally: The well-fed man does not believe the hungry one)
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