Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.
Jay-ZRead
One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don't like to think of themselves as poor.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how the desire for wealth leads to a reluctance to acknowledge poverty.
In this quote, Jay-Z reflects on the deep-rooted issue of inequality in America, emphasizing that the cultural ideal of wealth causes individuals, particularly those who are poor, to shy away from identifying as such. The pressure to aspire to riches can create a stigma around poverty, leading to a collective silence that perpetuates the cycle of inequality and prevents open discussions about economic struggles.
Themes
InequalityPovertyWealthAmerican DreamSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a community meeting discussing social issues, this quote can underline the importance of acknowledging poverty to address inequality.
More from Jay-Z
All quotes →The most amazing feeling I feel_x000D_ _x000D_ Words can't describe what I'm feeling for real _x000D_ _x000D_ Maybe I paint the sky blue _x000D_ _x000D_ My greatest creation was you.
Jay-ZRead
Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it
Jay-ZRead
I never ask for nothin' I don't demand of myself. Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
Jay-ZRead
It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.
Jay-ZRead
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
Jay-ZRead
Similar quotes
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas AdamsRead
Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.
Joseph CampbellRead
Death eats up all things, both the young lamb and old sheep; and I have heard our parson say, death values a prince no more than a clown.
Miguel De CervantesRead
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
William ShakespeareRead
My life is not this steeply sloping hour, in which you see me hurrying. Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree; I am only one of my many mouths, and at that, the one that will be still the soonest. I am the rest between two notes, which are somehow always in discord because Death’s note wants to climb over— but in the dark interval, reconciled, they stay there trembling. And the song goes on, beautiful.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.
Joko BeckRead