No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
SAMUEL GOMPERSAll 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.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
-
-
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
There are such wonderful possibilities in the life of each man and woman!
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
You can’t do it unless you organize.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service.
SAMUEL GOMPERS