QuoteProject
It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor; It's outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
Paul Simon
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the immorality of profiting from the suffering of others.

Paul Simon's quote challenges the ethics of those who gain financial success by exploiting the vulnerable and marginalized. It highlights the deep injustices and suffering faced by the poor while condemning the actions of those who prioritize profit over compassion and humanity.

Themes

PovertyExploitationMoralitySufferingInjustice

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech addressing social justice, one might quote this to highlight the need for ethical responsibility in business.

More from Paul Simon

I don't feel any pressure from fans. But I'm always in some kind of state of emotional turmoil. I would not describe myself as happy-go-lucky. That's not to say that I'm not happy.
Paul SimonRead
I sort of recognize it, as opposed to shaping it. Oh, that's a good idea, that's a good line. I wonder where I can use that. And when you get into a rhyme group like 'not,' you got a lot of rhymes, you got a lot of choices. The more you do it, the luckier you get.
Paul SimonRead
I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told, and I have squandered my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la-la-la...
Paul SimonRead
Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Paul SimonRead
I don't believe what the papers are saying They're just out to capture my dime, Exaggerating this, exaggerating that.
Paul SimonRead
Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
Paul SimonRead

Similar quotes

The stress laid on upward social mobility in the United States has tended to obscure the fact that there can be more than one kind of mobility and more than one direction in which it can go. There can be ethical mobility as well as financial, and it can go down as well as up.
Margaret HalseyRead
Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets, the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar?
Khalil GibranRead
He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Peter ThielRead
Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets.
William FaulknerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.