Paul Simon Quotes

Will the American People Never Cease to Oppress and Torture the Helpless poor?

It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.

Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

Where is there beauty when you see deprivation and starvation?

The Negro's and Negro Women are inhumanly treated, are two-thirds naked, and are very disgusting to the Eye and another Sense, Tho I begin to be more habituated to the Sight, yet I cannot be to the great Cruelty made Use of to the poor ignorant Wretches.

Church, State, and Nobility exhaust the People to such a degree, I have no Idea of the Possibility of deeper Wretchedness.

Disenfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.

All down history, nine-tenths of mankind have been grinding corn for the remaining one-tenth, been paid with the husks, and bidden to thank God they had the husks.

... an apathetic indifferent meat in a sandwich that has an ever thinning slice of maniacal Plutocratic Gluttony on top and an ever thickening slice of rotten vermin rottening at the bottom.

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.

As London is the greatest of all cities, there is naturally the greatest amount of human wretchedness to be seen concentrated within it; wretchedness too, that is made to look still more wretched, simply from the fact of its being associated with the most abundant comfort in the world.

Barbary is hell – So, alas, is all America south of Pennsylvania; for oppression, and slavery, and misery, are there!

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.

With what moral authority can they [the U. S.] speak of human rights — the rulers of a nation in which the millionaire and beggar coexist; the Indian is exterminated; the black man is discriminated against; the woman is prostituted; and the great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited, and humiliated?

… the unhappy Peasant cannot survive in his humble shelter; today pigswill is his only nourishment; what was once lavished on swine is now shared between man and beast. The People ask only for bread; they are even willing to pay for it with the sweat of their brows: at least let them eat it without watering it with tears.

This is a sick business. It's so sad.

As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich.

The miseries suffered by our people come more from the shameless exploitation of our countries.

Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.

It's hard to think what should make your blood boil more - what happened to Billy Ray or what didn't happen to those who abused him. It's something we can't ignore.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

People can be so apathetic. They continue to ignore the real people trapped in poverty and homelessness. It's almost maddening.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

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