"Money just draws flies"
About this Quote
Money just draws flies is a pungent proverb, and from Mahalia Jackson it carries the weight of hard-won wisdom. The image is simple: where there is sweetness or spoilage, flies gather. Wealth attracts attention, but not always the kind that nourishes a life. It invites opportunists, envy, petty hassle, and temptations that buzz and cling. Jackson knew that magnetic pull firsthand. She rose from New Orleans poverty to global fame as the greatest voice in gospel, selling millions of records and packing concert halls, and yet she refused the most lucrative offers to sing secular music in clubs. She guarded the sacred purpose of her art, declining money that demanded a compromise of spirit.
That stance came from conviction and experience. The mid-century music business could be predatory, especially toward Black artists. Contracts, managers, and hangers-on often swirled as soon as a hit record landed. Jackson kept her bearings, building legitimate businesses in Chicago and pouring energy and funds into the civil rights movement. She sang How I Got Over at the March on Washington and stood close to Martin Luther King Jr., urging him to speak from the heart about the dream. Her choices suggest a theology of enough: money can be useful, but it cannot be trusted to keep good company.
The flies are not only other people; they are distractions of the soul. Anxiety over status, pressure to please crowds, the buzz of constant demand can rot a vocation from within. Jacksons line does not scold wealth so much as it warns about its gravitational field. The remedy she modeled was clarity of purpose, generosity, and reverence. Keep the treasure where moth and rust cannot corrupt, and you will swat fewer flies. Keep it near your calling, and they have nowhere to land.
That stance came from conviction and experience. The mid-century music business could be predatory, especially toward Black artists. Contracts, managers, and hangers-on often swirled as soon as a hit record landed. Jackson kept her bearings, building legitimate businesses in Chicago and pouring energy and funds into the civil rights movement. She sang How I Got Over at the March on Washington and stood close to Martin Luther King Jr., urging him to speak from the heart about the dream. Her choices suggest a theology of enough: money can be useful, but it cannot be trusted to keep good company.
The flies are not only other people; they are distractions of the soul. Anxiety over status, pressure to please crowds, the buzz of constant demand can rot a vocation from within. Jacksons line does not scold wealth so much as it warns about its gravitational field. The remedy she modeled was clarity of purpose, generosity, and reverence. Keep the treasure where moth and rust cannot corrupt, and you will swat fewer flies. Keep it near your calling, and they have nowhere to land.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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