Eugene V. Debs Quotes
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When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known.
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Private appropriation of the Earth’s surface, the natural resources, and the means of life is nothing less a crime than a crime against humanity, but the comparative few who are beneficiaries of this iniquitous social arrangement, far from being viewed as criminals meriting punishment, are the exalted rulers of society, and the people they exploit gladly render them homage and obeisance.
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The American people can have anything they want; the trouble is, they don't know what they want.
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From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.
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I am guilty of believing that the human race can be humanized and enriched in every spiritual inference through the saner and more beneficent processes of peaceful persuasion applied to material problems rather than through wars, riots and bloodshed.
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What can Labor do for itself? The answer is not difficult. Labor can organize, it can unify; it can consolidate its forces. This done, it can demand and command.
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Riches are the savings of many in the hands of one.
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The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization. The time has come to regenerate society - we are on the eve of universal change.
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If I were hungry and friendless today, I would rather take my chances with a saloon-keeper than with the average preacher.
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Nothing is more humiliating than to have to beg for work, and a system in which any man has to beg for work stands condemned. No man can defend it.
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The economic owning class is always the political ruling class.
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It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund that you begin to live.
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The truth has always been dangerous to the rule of the rogue, the exploiter, the robber. So the truth must be supressed.
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While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
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We want a system in which the worker shall get what he produces and the capitalist shall produce what he gets.
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Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage... I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.
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I do not oppose the insane asylum - but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.
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Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results.
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Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
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Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation.
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No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.
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In all the history of organized labor, from the earliest times to the present day, no body of union workingmen ever served in a more humiliating and debasing role than that in which the railway unions appear at this very hour before the American people and the world.
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I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it.
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The protection the government owes you and fails to provide, you are morally bound to provide for yourselves.