Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes

The greatest part of mankind ... are given up to labor, and enslaved to the necessity of their mean condition; whose lives are worn out only in the provisions for living.

I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me tobe doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.... The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor.

God bless my mother - she's long gone now, but she'd work all day and go to school at night. She started out in life as a housekeeper at 15 years old, totally on her own, and she retired as a college professor. But there were some hard times. It's not easy for a woman who's only trying to do the best for her kid but who could never be home.

My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn't. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

When I was struggling to get recognition as a wrestler, I faced innumerable hardships. I even slept on the ring itself after finishing my practice. Those days, I did not have a house to live.

When I first started fighting, it wasn't the easiest thing. I didn't have all the money in the world. I was eating Subway once in a while, some packets of oatmeal here and there. It wasn't that bad, but it's because I was fortunate and had good people there to support me.

When I see children in New Delhi, babies walking around in no diapers and their mother is in a corner putting up bricks, it gives you a sense of being grounded.

it is easy to starve, but it is difficult to stoop.

Those who have nothing have only their discipline.

Neither great nor good things were ever attained without loss and hardships. Those that would reap and not labour, must faint with the wind, and perish in disappointments; but an hair of my head shall not fall, without the providence of my Father that is over all.

Blood sweat and tears homie I'm made of it

Strange how it was always the spoiled who weakened and cried first, and it was the injured, the maimed, the blind, and the poor who fought on alone.

My mother was the one constant in my life. When I think about my mom raising me alone when she was 20, and working and paying the bills, and, you know, trying to pursue your own dreams, I think is a feat that is unmatched.

My mother was very passionate about life and she would do anything for us. And she had to fight alone to raise us. We never had a lot of money for extras or anything. She had to work six days a week, and then she would do breakfast, lunch and dinner. She was a super-woman! For me, I don't know how she did it with three kids.

Here below is not the land of happiness: I know it now; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.

I travel around the world, experiencing every language, every religion... some places where there's just no reason to smile, because their lives are so difficult.

Great things come out of being hungry and cold. Once you're pampered, you get lazy.

I experienced firsthand what it means to be poor, what it means to go hungry, and that, I think, may be the reason, the root cause of why I'm able to work so hard, even these days.

Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.

A lot of times when people become successful, people don't really understand what they had to do or the sacrifices they made to do that, or they assume that they had money. This is coming from, like, a kid who was broke and lived with roaches and a single mom in Dorchester.

No cross no crown.

My grandmother had six kids - one died as an infant - and she was dirt-poor, and all her kids got an education. And my mom grew up poor. And they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness. I wanted to have that like an amulet. Not like armor, but like a magic feather. Like Dumbo's magic feather.

Every hour I spent on manual work, every hour I was humiliated in England or degraded has helped me because that's the same way other people feel in the townships here. People are still walking long distances and are working long hours.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.