“Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .”

Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.

Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.

No human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.

All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.

Do I believe in arbitration? I do. But not in arbitration between the lion and the lamb, in which the lamb is in the morning found inside the lion

It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.

The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers… It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.

So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service.

[The labor movement is] a movement of the working people, for the working people, by the working people, governed by ourselves, with its policies determined by ourselves.

To be free, the workers must have choice. To have choice they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what conditions they will work.

The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.

So long as there is one [person] who seeks employment and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long.

Show me that product of human endeavor in the making of which the workingman has had no share, and I will show you something that society can well dispense with.

In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers.

Let social busybodies and professional “public morals experts” in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.

One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man’s attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man’s reason can a movement succeed.

As long as I stay engaged with everybody else, then I’ll create more comedy. It’s just when I shut off and stay at home… What helps me is just to keep moving.

It is easy to understand God as long as you don’t try to explain him.

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

My lawyer has been a good friend of mine for a long time. He and I continuously have conversations.

So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.

You might be tough, but you can only be so tough for so long, you know what I mean? The brain can only take so much damage. The body can only take so much damage.

I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and Salman Rushdie.