Eugene V. Debs quotes

Eugene V. Debs was an American labor leader and five-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. A passionate advocate for workers’ rights, he played a key role in the early U.S. labor movement. He became widely known for his speeches and activism against social and economic injustice. Here are 122 of his quotes:

I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world.

Eugene V. Debs

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

The most heroic word in all languages is REVOLUTION.

Eugene V. Debs

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

Eugene V. Debs

[T]he class which has the power to rob upon a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalize their robbery.

Eugene V. Debs

When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known.

Eugene V. Debs

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

The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.

Eugene V. Debs

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

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

Eugene V. Debs

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

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then 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

If Theodore Roosevelt is the great champion of democracy -the arch foe of autocracy, what business had he as the guest of honor of the Prussian Kaiser? And when he met the Kaiser, and did honor to the Kaiser, under the terms imputed to him, wasn't it pretty strong proof that he himself was a Kaiser at heart? Now, after being the guest of Emperor Wilhelm, the Beast of Berlin, he comes back to this country, and wants you to send ten million men over there to kill the Kaiser; to murder his former friend and pal. Rather queer, isn't it? And yet, he is the patriot, and we are the traitors. I challenge you to find a Socialist anywhere on the face of the earth who was ever the guest of the Beast of Berlin, except as an inmate of his prison-the elder Liebknecht and the younger Liebknecht, the heroic son of his immortal sire.

Eugene V. Debs

Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? ... We have been fighting it since the day the Socialist movement was born; and we are going to continue to fight it, day and night, until it is wiped from the face of the earth. Between us there is no truce-no compromise.

Eugene V. Debs

If I had the force to overthrow these despotic laws I would use it without an instant's hesitation or delay, but I haven't got it, and so I am law-abiding under protest - not from scruple - and bide my time.

Eugene V. Debs

We live in the capitalist system, so-called because its dominated by the capitalist class. In this system the capitalists are the rulers and the workers the subjects. The capitalists are in a decided minority and yet they rule because of the ignorance of the working class.

Eugene V. Debs

I have not a bit of use for the "propaganda of the deed." These are the tactics of anarchist individualists and not of socialist collectivists. They were developed by and belong exclusively to our anarchist friends and accord perfectly with their philosophy. These and similar measures are reactionary, not revolutionary, and they invariably have a demoralizaing effect upon the following of those who practice them. If I believed in the doctrine of violence and destruction as part policy; if I regarded the class struggle as guerilla warfare, I would join the anarchists and practice as well as preach such tactics.

Eugene V. Debs

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.

Eugene V. Debs

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

Eugene V. Debs

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

He who aspires to master the art of expression must first of all consecrate himself completely to some great cause.

Eugene V. Debs

This assemblage is exceedingly good to look upon. I wish it were possible for me to give you what you are giving me this afternoon. What I say here amounts to but little; what I see here is exceedingly important. You workers in Ohio, enlisted in the greatest cause ever organized in the interest of your class, are making history today in the face of threatening opposition of all kinds-history that is going to be read with profound interest by coming generations.

Eugene V. Debs