50 quotes
All the learned men with all their wisdom, with all of the legal niceties they can put together on the finest of parchment, cannot produce one ton of steel.
Address accepting the Presidency of the CIO (1952)
The only war America wants to fight is war against poverty, hunger, ignorance, and disease. It's the only war mankind can win.
Meeting with Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev (1959)
There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow man. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to do it well.
The real test of friendship and solidarity is not where one stands when the weather is fair and the sun is shining but rather where one stands at a time of storm and stress.
Address before the Berlin Freedom Rally (1959)
The great challenge before us is to find a way to use the bright promise of science and technology in a massive retaliation against poverty, hunger, and social injustice in the world.
Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)
The great challenge before us is to find a way to get people and nations working together in the positive and rewarding task of peace as they have repeatedly joined together in the senseless and destructive waging of war.
Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)
Wall Street says I am an agent of Moscow, and Moscow says I am an agent of Wall Street.
Meeting with Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev (1959)
One thing we must do, most of all, in the future, is to harness the atom for peace and get all of the miners out of the earth.
Meeting with Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev (1959)
The Supreme Court is living in the twentieth century and the Congress is still somewhere back in the dark nineteenth century. It's about time they catch up.
Address before the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1957)
We are going to keep preaching the gospel that freedom and democracy in peace are indivisible values in the world and that no one can have them unless they are universal and all people may share them.
I've read in the papers, as you do, about juvenile delinquency. I've always had a feeling that the problem in America is not juvenile delinquency, but adult delinquency. Our children are not failing us—it is we who are failing our children.
Address before the National Council for Social Studies of the National Education Association (1956)
We believe that it is not enough to fight against the things that we oppose—we must fight with equal courage and equal dedication for the things that we believe in.
Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)
We say to American industry, if you can afford to pay pension plans to people who don't need them, then by the eternal gods you are going to have to pay them to people who do need them.
Opening address of the twelfth constitutional convention of the UAW (1949)
I am for the state only doing what people are unable to do in the absence of government action.
Television interview with Mike Wallace (1960)
Therefore, as we see it, the cold war is not an attempt to change each other's systems of government, but to influence those that are uncommitted.
Meeting with Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev (1959)
I only want the government to do the things that you can't do without the government.
Television interview with Mike Wallace (1960)
We will not meet the problems of tomorrow by talking about yesterday's concepts.
Television interview with Mike Wallace (1960)
Just as the moral and spiritual power of Gandhi won in Indian, so American Negroes shall win in America, and they shall take their place as free and equal citizens in the family of American democracy.
Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)
I have been saying for a long time that I believe the more young Americans who are trained to join with other young people in the world to be sent abroad with slide rule, textbook, and medical kit to help people help themselves with the tools of peace, the fewer young people will need to be sent with guns and weapons of war.
Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)
The American Dream is not about gadgets. It’s not about the size of our gross national product. It’s not about the level of technological sophistication. The American Dream is about man. It’s about broadening the opportunities and facilitating the growth of every human being, so that each person can reach out and achieve a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Putting the World Together: My Father Walter Reuther: The Liberal Warrior (2004)