Russell Simmons Quotes

The central issue of our time remains the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

There's more poor people in this country than there are rich, and I stick up for the poor people.

The greatest discrimination in the world now is against poor people.

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.

We cannot afford to leave the poor behind.

The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.

White America is tortured by black America's failure to thrive, and all that guilt and anxiety has only gotten worse as a substantial quota of white America loses its own footing in the middle class and plunges into the rough country of joblessness, hopelessness, and government dependency.

With all the other -isms that we deal with, that sort of nameless -ism that we have in too many of our hearts against the poor in this country is what wounds us most broadly.

Never forget that there are rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.

It’s dangerous to live among poor people, because if they don’t have income, they are coming for you.

Nobody talks about the poor. Everybody talks about the middle class and just kinda want to ignore that the poor exist. And you cannot ignore that they exist if you want to help them.

Wealth does not trickle down to the poor. Oxfam knows this, the IMF knows this, the World Bank knows this. Poor people have always known this.

Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.

The crisis in America that we barely notice anymore is that we've become two nations - divided by poverty, opportunity, and race. It's like a neighbor's car alarm that we don't hear anymore because it rings so often.

Hey, baby, nobody suffers like the poor.

India happens to be a rich country inhabited by very poor people.

What I worry about is the lack of understanding in society around the world that there is a divide in the world between those who have and those who do not.

It's morally wrong, and economically self-defeating, that so much wealth flows upwards towards the richest of Americans, while millions work full time but still can't provide for their families.

The rich become richer and the poor become poorer is a cry heard throughout the whole civilized world.

In Latin America, you don't do things for the money because there is no money.

Poverty affects people of all races.

To see poor people, their benefits being cut, to see pensions of Americans who have worked like my father, all their lives, and taken away, to see the rich just accumulating more and more wealth. I mean, it seems to me that there has to be a point where you have to say, 'No, this has to stop.'

Poverty and lack of knowledge must be challenged.

The tax collector must love poor people, he's creating so many of them.

Half the world does not know how the other half lives.