E.v. Debs Quotes

#1. From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.

Eugene V. Debs

#2. 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

#3. The most heroic word in all languages is revolution.

Eugene V. Debs

#4. The American people can have anything they want; the trouble is, they don't know what they want.

Eugene V. Debs

#5. The prison, above all others, should be the most human of institutions.

Eugene V. Debs

#6. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.

Eugene V. Debs

#7. It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.

Eugene V. Debs

#8. 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

#9. 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

#10. 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

#11. 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

#12. 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

#13. Eugene V. Debs has always been one of my heroes.

Clarence Darrow

#14. In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.
(Canton, OH, Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918)

Eugene V. Debs

#15. Privately owned industry and production for individual profit are no longer compatible with social progress and have ceased to work out to humane and civilized ends.

Eugene V. Debs

#16. I would rather be arrested as a traitor than fight a war for Wall Street.

Eugene V. Debs

#17. The press and the pulpit have in every age and every nation been on the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class.

Eugene V. Debs

#18. Aramaic has no vowels. So MLK spells Moloch." "Or milk," Deborah said. "Really, Debs, if you think our killer would tattoo milk on his neck, you need a nap.

Jeff Lindsay

#19. The people can have anything they want, the only problem is they do not want anything.

Eugene V. Debs

#20. 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

#21. Capitalism needs and must have the prison to protect itself from the criminals it has created.

Eugene V. Debs

#22. The protection the government owes you and fails to provide, you are morally bound to provide for yourselves ...

Eugene V. Debs

#23. 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

#24. Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation.

Eugene V. Debs

#25. A privately owned world can never be a free world and a society based upon warring classes cannot stand.

Eugene V. Debs

#26. 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

#27. Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people.

Marguerite Young

#28. We want a system in which the worker shall get what he produces and the capitalist shall produce what he gets.

Eugene V. Debs

#29. When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.

Eugene V. Debs

#30. 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