84 Quotes by Eugene V. Debs

I would not be a Moses to lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you into it, someone else could lead you out of it.

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

Some go to prison for stealing, and others for believing that a better system can be provided and maintained than one that makes it necessary for a man to steal in order to live.

Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.

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.

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.

Nothing is more humiliating than to have to beg for work, and a system in which any man has to beg for work stands condemned. No man can defend it.

In the very progress of society, the prison has in the very nature of things undergone some improvement, but there are vast stretches yet to be covered before the prison becomes, if it ever does, an institution for the reclamation and rehabilitation of erring and unfortunate men and women.

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