Eugene V. Debs famous quotes

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Men #Order #Doe

If you go to the city of Washington, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of congress, and mis-representatives of the masses claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Glowing #Cities #Would Be

I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Country #Fighting #Patriotism

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Equality #Class #Diversity

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#War #Class #Battle

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Years #Class #Soul

I am not a capitalist soldier; I am a proletarian revolutionist. I do not belong to the regular army of the plutocracy, but to the irregular army of the people. I refuse to obey any command to fight from the ruling class, but I will not wait to be commanded to fight for the working class. I am opposed to every war but one; I am for that war with heart and soul, and that is the world-wide war of social revolution. In that war I am prepared to fight in any way the ruling class may make necessary, even to the barricades.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#War #Heart #Fighting

Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Tasks #Should #Produce

As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Class #Remember #Republican

Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Brother #Children #Helping Others

Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on Earth.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Truth #Worry #Causes

I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Democracy #Politics #Want

If I were hungry and friendless today, I would rather take my chances with a saloon-keeper than with the average preacher.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Average #Today #Chance

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - especially their lives.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#War #Class #Battle

Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Struggle #Class #Tears

When I rise it will be with the ranks and not from the ranks.
-- Eugene V. Debs

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Mean #Punishment #People

The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Rights #Sacred

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Honesty #Oneness #Effort

The most heroic word in all languages is revolution.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Struggle #Revolution #Heroic

Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. 'But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Thug #Public Opinion #Realization

I don't want you to follow me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Business #Land #Want

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Freedom #Democracy #Majority

Anybody can be nobody, but it takes a man to be somebody.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Greatness #Men

Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Cities #Chicago #Modern

I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Jail #Soul #Coward

I would not be a Moses to lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you into it, someone else could lead you out of it.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Land #Moses #Promised Land

Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Earth #Causes #Be True To Yourself

The people can have anything they want, the only problem is they do not want anything.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#People #Want #Problem

They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Freedom #War #Self

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Military #War #Believe

You have got to unite in the same labor union and in the same political party and strike and vote together, and the hour you do that, the world is yours.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Party #Political #Together

It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund that you begin to live.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Helping Others #Done #Common

From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Feet #Crowns #Proud

A prison is a cross section of society in which every human strain is clearly revealed.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Prison #Crosses #Humans

If the people would but analyze the human equation of a prison they might better account for the crimes that are visited upon them in cities, towns, and hamlets, ofttimes by men who graduated with an education and equipment for just that sort of retributive service from some penal institution.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Men #Cities #People

The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Party #Struggle #Class

The guns on the walls that surround the prison accurately, though unwittingly, index the true character of the penitentiary in our day.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Wall #Character #Gun

Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Progress #Agitation #Born

In the very progress of society, the prison has in the very nature of things undergone some improvement, but there are vast stretches yet to be covered before the prison becomes, if it ever does, an institution for the reclamation and rehabilitation of erring and unfortunate men and women.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Men #Progress #Doe

Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ''Am I my brother's keeper?'' That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Brother #Years #Way

The American people can have anything they want; the trouble is, they don't know what they want.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#People #Want #Trouble

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Done #Answers #Demand

Labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Today #Sun #Realization

Some go to prison for stealing, and others for believing that a better system can be provided and maintained than one that makes it necessary for a man to steal in order to live.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Believe #Men #Order

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Spiritual #War #Believe

The general public knows practically nothing about the prison and appears to be little concerned about how it is managed and how prisoners are treated.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#People #Littles #Prison

The prison, above all others, should be the most human of institutions.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Prison #Should #Institutions

A man should take to himself no discomfort from an opinion expressed or implied by his adversary, but it is difficult, and oftentimes humiliating to attempt to justify the kindness of one's friends.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Kindness #Men #Opinion

I am for Socialism because I am for humanity.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Humanity #Socialism

You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Slavery #Needs #Fit

Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Intelligent #Civilization #Progress

No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#War #People #Age

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Freedom #Long #Mind

The economic owning class is always the political ruling class.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Class #Political #Economic

Every solitary one of these aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot! What false pretense! These autocrats, these tyrants, these red-handed robbers and murderers, the "patriots," while the men who have the courage to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited victims-they are the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#War #Fighting #Men

One glance proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these unions (railroad craft unions) are exceedingly useful to the corporations; and to the extent that they serve the economic and political purposes of the corporations, they are the foes – and not the friends – of the working class.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Class #Political #Doubt

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#People #Roles #World

Speaking of myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism the capitalist class have it within their power to keep the workers divided, to use one part of them to conquer and crush another part of them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Crush #Struggle #Class

As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. Craft unionism is the negation of solidarity. The more unions you have, the less unity.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Army #Long #Unity

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Civilization #Issues #Long

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.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Men #Community #Insanity

Why should the railroad employees be parceled out among a score of different organizations? They are all employed in the same service. Their interests are mutual. They ought to be able to act together as one. But they divide according to craft and calling, and if you were to propose today to unite them that they might actually do something to advance their collective and individual interests as workers, you would be opposed by every grand officer of these organizations.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Organization #Together #Different

If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Intelligent #Civilization #Progress

We want a system in which the worker shall get what he produces and the capitalist shall produce what he gets.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Want #Economy #Produce

The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Work #Race #Savior

I would no more teach children military training than teach them arson, robbery, or assassination.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Children #Military #Training

I may not be able to say all I think, but I am not going to say anything I do not think.
-- Eugene V. Debs

#Thinking #Say Anything #May