M.I.A. Quotes

My father bought three ramshackle houses, rebuilt them, rented them out, kept clawing his way up the ladder. A man with a third grade education from the south.

Every business decision I ever made I learned from my grandfather Papa Sam. He moved here from Russia when he was a boy. He worked his way up selling newspapers and ladies' handbags, and eventually, he became Cadillac Sam, one of the biggest car dealers in Chicago.

Madam Walker was a woman who transformed herself in a very American, rags-to-riches way.

I came from nothing. I came from the projects and welfare and ended up a millionaire with no frame of reference. I was bound to hit a wall sooner or later.

The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches - with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone - was once at the core of the American Dream.

You can say that Mitt Romney started with nothing! He didn't get an inheritance from his dad.

My grandmother was divorced, and she had 10 children herself. She never finished high school. She started selling lace on the side of the road and then grew that into a multimillion-dollar business - a retail store selling mostly furniture and appliances.

As a kid, I grew up middle class, but my father was a great innovator with an entrepreneurial spirit, and it wasn't long before my family became part of the infamous 1%.

It's kind of a crazy thing to decide that you're going to be worth tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars and set out to do that. It doesn't suit everybody.

After working for 14 years on Wall Street and growing up in a family with strong roots in small business, I know how important the entrepreneurial spirit is to attaining the American dream.

I have spent some time talking to Rex Tillerson. He's an amazing human being. He's an American success story, not just in his business life. He's a rags-to-riches success story. He stated working at 8, lived in a one-bedroom house until the time he went to college, and grew to become the CEO of one of the world's largest companies.

My father built a small business from scratch with years and years of sweat equity and many, many weeks away from home. He employed about 50 people, and by the end of his working years, the business was highly successful. He became a millionaire.

Donald Trump is living proof of the American Dream. A kid from Queens, New York, who made it big. And, yeah - he'll be the first to tell you he isn't perfect. But who is?

I want all Latinos to know the American dream is alive. I believe in economic liberty. I believe there's no demographic more suited to achieving the American dream than Latinos.

The American Dream Dusty Rhodes, rest his soul, he was hard as hell on me. He was tougher on me than anybody.

I'm happy to see somebody from the urban community that could go out and make a half-a-billion dollars.

I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations.

If I was as rich as Rockefeller I'd be richer than Rockefeller, because I'd do a bit of window cleaning on the side.

I actually almost made a million dollars while in high school.

I'm the cash cow now, man. It's the Cejudo way.

My story, is how a kid that's born into really destitute poverty on a little dirt road in Florida winds up in one of the largest bands in history.

Wayne Messam does not have any financial problems and is a classic American Success Story.

I have two people that I mainly look up to: Magic Johnson is one of them. He just blew everything out of the water. He didn't make much money in basketball, but since basketball has been over, he's investing in the community and making a lot of money at the same time. The next one I look up to is Sean Combs, who has always been a hustler.

Even with uncertainty around the future of work in an increasingly automated world, Airbnb will remain a way for women to achieve greater financial independence and social empowerment in the years ahead.

Seeing Jay Z's just a great example of somebody who comes from a ghetto to rise to where he's at. I think... he done a great job.