Skip to content

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 Federal Court statement (1918)

Another quote →

Topics

Poverty

More quotes by Eugene V. Debs

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

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

Federal Court statement (1918)

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.

The most heroic word in all languages is REVOLUTION.

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.

Walls and Bars (1927)

All Eugene V. Debs quotes →

You may also like

We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies.

Solomon

If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person.

Leo Tolstoy

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Eugene V. Debs (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.