“The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.”

The right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong.

There are such wonderful possibilities in the life of each man and woman!

Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop.

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.

The periods of unemployment accompanying depression in the business cycle . . . present a challenge to all our claims to progress, humanity, and civilization.

The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease.

You can’t do it unless you organize.

What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.

There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is his right. It is his legal right, no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right, and no one can or dare question his exercise of that legal right.

Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.

No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.

To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.

To free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery.

We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.

Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.

W.Z. Foster {head of the American Communist Party}, who had no money, went to Moscow and came back and announced that he was building a great secret machine to undermine the American labor movement and turn it over to the Red International, owned by Lenin.

In nine lifetimes, you’ll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.

The way I look at it is, if you don’t want somebody to know something, don’t say it. If you don’t want them to see you do something, don’t do it.

Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.

The consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, almost religious dignity.

I know how to make it a great musical. I’ve got to. It’s like I’ve got to see it on stage.

The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

All I know is that, thanks to a sort of habit which has always been ingrained in me, I have never, at any moment of my life, experienced the least difficulty in addressing myself to God as to a supreme Someone.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?