Jimmy Rushing Quotes

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

When I was a child, I didn't fly - we couldn't afford to fly. Flying was for rich people.

The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all base morals are just two sayings: The First Saying: 'So long as I'm full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?' The Second Saying: 'You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so that I can eat.'

I had a very comfortable life, but there were people who spent their life in prison, whose families were destroyed.

Victorian values meant brutalizing people who were often poor.

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

Soul music is pain - you can hear the slaves, the beatin' and the hurtin'.

Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime.

We're coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more We leave our homes and firesides with bleeding hearts and sore Since poverty has been our crime, we bow to thy decree; We are the poor and have no wealth to purchase liberty.

It is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

The poor developed an envy and an extreme jealousy, born of the realization that they are as worthy, or even more worthy than the wealthy, and are nonetheless afflicted with poverty, hunger, misery, and contempt.

It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor. Outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure. It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain. It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain. But I'm tired.

Sadness is a privilege. To be mopey about something, that's a privilege. I did not grow up with that.

He's earned a lifetime of peace and happiness, but some people never get what they deserve. That's why there are saints in gutters and sadists in palaces.

I used to sleep on floors and face racial abuse.

When a family is poor, everyone is poor, and there is huge solidarity. People will take a bullet for you. But when one makes it, it is like you owe everyone.

I think it's criminal the way poverty is allowed to flourish.

I learnt a hard fact: that dignity is a luxury in our country.

The amount of suffering I've seen is beyond belief. The amount of inequality is beyond belief.

I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

I don't like to see people using their power over others, trying to hurt people who are weak or poor or people with darker skin or anyone who doesn't have as much privilege. It makes me so angry. I want to fight for people. I want to be able to make some kind of difference in the world.

I think once I had lived life, once I had failed enough in this lifetime and got back up a thousand times from failing, I really connected to the blues.

There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.

The outrages of the powerful, the insolence of the rich, scorn of the proud, and malice of the uncharitable, all beating against the broken spirit of the unfortunate.