Hightower Quotes & Sayings

Only the poor can know all the disadvantages of poverty. Only the rich can know all the disadvantages of wealth. — Cullen Hightower

Well, I've been in the political arena all of my life, and 10 years of that as a candidate and elected official, and that's about enough. — Jim Hightower

Organic agriculture is more about fairness and respect than it is about parts-per-billion of pesticide residues — Jim Hightower

What's new is that the White House itself has now been corporatized. It's not politicians working for the corporate interests. They are the corporate interests. That's where Bush came from, and Cheney and Rumsfeld. — Jim Hightower

If I go anywhere, and I don't have my coffee, I don't drink coffee. When I travel, I carry it with me - and I ask hotels to grind it and brew it for me if I can't have it in my room myself. I'm dedicated that way. — Grace Hightower

The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't keep trying to correct them. — Cullen Hightower

Democracy is not something that happens, you know, just at election time, and it's not something that happens just with one event. It's an ongoing building process. But it also ought to be a part of our culture, a part of our lives. — Jim Hightower

The original Greek word "idiotes" referred to people who might have had a high IQ, but were so self-involved that they focused exclusively on their own life and were both ignorant of and uncaring about public concerns and the common good. — Jim Hightower

When performance exceeds ambition, the overlap is called success. — Cullen Hightower

There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos. — Jim Hightower

When I entered politics, I took the only downward turn you could take from journalism. — Jim Hightower

Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy. — Jim Hightower

If you don't speak out when it matters, when would it matter to speak out? — Jim Hightower

The only new ideas that are not subject to our skepticism or suspicion are our own. — Cullen Hightower

The middle of the road is for yellow lines and dead armadillos. — Jim Hightower

Why is the press America's showcase for freedom? Because just about everything else has been regulated. — Cullen Hightower

The prime of life is that fleeting time between green and over-ripe. — Cullen Hightower

There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success. — Jim Hightower

Money was invented
so we could know exactly how much we owe. — Cullen Hightower

You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force. — Jim Hightower

And when Hightower approaches, the smell of plump unwashed flesh and unfresh clothing
that odor of unfastidious sedentation, of static overflesh not often enough bathed
is well nigh overpowering. [ ... ] It is the odor of goodness. Of course it would smell bad to us that are bad and sinful. — William Faulkner

A mind becomes a detriment when it acquires more intelligence than its integrity can handle. — Cullen Hightower

Lexington is not big enough to have clubs with long lines, but at least they don't have velvet ropes. — Lynn S. Hightower

Ser Gerold Hightower had begun his history, and Ser Barristan Selmy had continued it, but the rest Jaime Lannister would need to write for himself. He could write whatever he chose, henceforth.
Whatever he chose ... — George R R Martin

Getting even with somebody is no way to get ahead of anybody. — Cullen Hightower

Because Hightower's problem, among other things, is that advertisers would be a lot less interested in his show than in Limbaugh's, even if they have similar ratings, because of what Hightower is saying. — Robert McChesney

Worry compounds the futility of being trapped on a dead-end street. Thinking opens new avenues. — Cullen Hightower

One difference between savagery and civilization is a little courtesy. There's no telling what a lot of courtesy would do. — Cullen Hightower

Our laws can be friendly to those who obey them, and too often useful to those who don't. — Cullen Hightower

The American way is the way most law-abiding Americans live - in debt. Does this make a balanced budget un-American? — Cullen Hightower

Populism is at its essence [ ... ] just determined focus on helping people be able to get out of the iron grip of the corporate power that is overwhelming our economy, our environment, energy, the media, government. [ ... ] One big difference between real populism and what the Tea Party thing is, is that real populists understand that government has become a subsidiary of corporations. So you can't say, let's get rid of government. You need to be saying let's take over government. — Jim Hightower

If you don't speak out now when it matters, when would it matter for you to speak out? — Jim Hightower

People seldom become famous for what they say until after they are famous for what they've done. — Cullen Hightower

Populists have always been out to challenge the orthodoxy of the corporate order and to empower workaday Americans so they can control their own economic and political destinies. This approach distinguishes the movement from classic liberalism, which seeks to live in harmony with concentrated corporate power by trying to regulate excesses. — Jim Hightower

A figment of the imagination is just a harmless illusion - unless you are victim of it. — Cullen Hightower

Some of these rich folks seem to think that everything belongs to them and they'll even get to take it with them when they die. But you know what? You don't ever see a hearse pulling a U Haul. — Jim Hightower

A good education prepares a child to be a good employee and a good citizen-in that order, with the importance of the former never exceeding the importance of the latter. — Cullen Hightower

When Rick Perry says I can do for America what I've done for Texas, pay attention. That's no idle threat. — Jim Hightower

The corporations don't have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government. — Jim Hightower

Don't expect other nations to have a democracy like ours - they don't have enough lawyers. — Cullen Hightower

After our ages-long journey from savagery to civility, let's hope we haven't bought a round-trip ticket. — Cullen Hightower

Banks don't commit crimes. Bankers do. And they won't ever stop if they don't have to pay for their crimes. — Jim Hightower

It's hard to believe President George Bush gave a speech in New Orleans about disaster recovery and failed to mention the word 'farm' or the word 'rural.' — Jim Hightower

Some people say we need a third party. I wish we had a second one. — Jim Hightower

The wheel was invented so we could move faster. Credit was invented so we would have to. — Cullen Hightower

But, as my mother used to tell me, two wrongs don't make a right. But I soon figured out that three left turns do. — Jim Hightower

Of all creatures on earth, we humans have the highest level of stupidity. — Cullen Hightower

The human body was designed to walk, run or stop; it wasn't built for coasting. — Cullen Hightower

In our nation there are two classes of nobility: the law-abiding workers and the law-abiding employers who sustain each other. — Cullen Hightower

Liberals want to manage the damage with government programs to take care of those who have fallen between the cracks. Populists want to fix the cracks so that people don't fall in the first place. — Jim Hightower

If television encouraged us to work as much as it encourages us to do everything else, we could better afford to buy more of everything it advertises. — Cullen Hightower

I'm not the type of person that could take someone else's funds and take a chance with them. — Grace Hightower

If ignorance goes to forty dollars a barrel, I want drilling rights to George Bush's head. — Jim Hightower

When we put our best foot forward, the other one had better be good enough to stand on. — Cullen Hightower

Older generations are living proof that younger generations can survive their lunacy. — Cullen Hightower

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know. — Cullen Hightower

We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex - but Congress can. — Cullen Hightower

It's hard for the donkeys to win the race if they're going to carry the elephants on their backs. — Jim Hightower

A stepping-stone can be a stumbling block if we can't see it until after we have tripped over it. — Cullen Hightower

So now is the time, more than ever, for those who truly value all the principles of democracy, especially including dissent, to be the most forceful in speaking up, standing up and speaking out. — Jim Hightower

Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos. — Cullen Hightower

Politics ought to be fun. It shouldn't be just boring meetings. — Jim Hightower

Talk is cheap - except when Congress does it. — Cullen Hightower

I don't encourage kids to eat sugar, but I do it. — Grace Hightower

Failure can be bought on easy terms; success must be paid for in advance — Cullen Hightower

Even a little dog can piss on a big building. — Jim Hightower

Every U.S. citizen owes allegiance to our nation. Some Americans consider that anything less than high treason is allegiance. — Cullen Hightower

There are people who can talk sensibly about a controversial issue; they're called humorists. — Cullen Hightower

Every adult should be an expert on teenagers, after spending life's seven longest years being one. — Cullen Hightower

Courtship brings out the best. Marriage brings out the rest. — Cullen Hightower

Even the smallest dog can lift its leg on the tallest building. — Jim Hightower

The good news, though, is that I find in my political travels that people, as regular citizens, are more interested than ever in getting together and having discussions. They want to hear about other viewpoints that differ entirely from what the administration is putting out. — Jim Hightower

It may be the rooster that does all the crowing but it's the hen that delivers the goods. — Jim Hightower

It's an essential fight librarians are making, an age-old fight; yours is a battle for civilization. It's a fight for our country's founding values. — Jim Hightower

We experience moments absolutely free from worry. These brief respites are called panic. — Cullen Hightower

This is a matter of public health. The public was sick and tired of DeLay and his corruption. — Jim Hightower

Our ego is our silent partner ... too often with a controlling interest. — Cullen Hightower

He was drop-dead gorgeous and I, well I was just ... dead. (Tera Hightower, Dead Chick Walking) — Ace Antonio Hall

What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays' Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people ... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie ... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it's down to us. — Jim Hightower

The water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek. — Jim Hightower

You have to learn to read between the lies. — Jim Hightower

The only difference between a pigeon and the American farmer today is that a pigeon can still make a deposit on a John Deere. — Jim Hightower

Populism is not a style, it's a people's rebellion against the iron grip that big corporations have on our country - including our economy, government, media, and environment. — Jim Hightower

The real bias of the media is not to the left or to the right, but to the thin strata of economic elites at the top of our society. — Jim Hightower

The [Democratic] party is a bank. It collects money and gives it to TV stations. — Jim Hightower

We all like to see everybody make a profit ... a very little. — Cullen Hightower

America's drug war is so stupid that if you pay close attention to just how stupid it is
it'll drive you to use drugs. — Jim Hightower

My vision is to hire qualified employees that may have not yet had the opportunity to create a better life for themselves, or did have one but might have came down on hard times and need a hand. — Grace Hightower

If it's dangerous to talk to yourself, it's probably even dicier to listen. — Jim Hightower

Strangers are what friends are made of. — Cullen Hightower

Our freedom to discipline ourselves is a freedom we can lose if we don't use it. — Cullen Hightower

Look behind you now.
Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?
... Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower takes to the sky with thousands Afterlights heading toward Memphis.
... Perhaps this is the moment that Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, arrives in the same city in search for Allie, only to find that he has no idea where to look.
... Perhaps this is the very instant that a monster called the McGill arrives there as well, aching to ease his pain by sharing his misery - not only with his new minions, but with anyone he can.
... And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the covergence of the wrong, of the right, and the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep ... For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of doubt, which is which. — Neal Shusterman

We sometimes get all the information, but we refuse to get the message. — Cullen Hightower

Before I started Coffee of Grace, I assumed all coffee came from Latin America or Indonesia. I wasn't familiar with African coffee. — Grace Hightower

Republicans are so empty-headed, they wouldn't make a good landfill. — Jim Hightower

The corporation cannot be ethical, its only responsibility is to make a profit. — Jim Hightower

I'll give you my routine, my morning ritual: I get up, I do a bit of stretching, and then after showering and everything, I have a half cup of warm lemon water. I've been doing that forever. I love it. It just brightens everything for me. — Grace Hightower

But the good news is that out in the countryside, just about every place that's got a zip code has somebody or some group of people battling the economic and political exclusion that Wall Street and Washington are shoving down our throats. — Jim Hightower

The issue isn't just jobs. Even slaves had jobs. The issue is wages. — Jim Hightower

Good wages are pro business, since they reduce turnover, increase morale, produce better-skilled employees, and improve productivity. — Jim Hightower