Mother Jones Quotes & Sayings

I believe that no man who holds a leader's position should ever accept favors from either side. He is then committed to show favors. A leader must stand alone. — Mother Jones

I want you to pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don't' fear a governor; don't fear anybody. You pay the governor; he has the right to protect you. You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will. — Mother Jones

Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living — Mother Jones

I'm not a lady, I'm a hellraiser — Mother Jones

I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country. You don't need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice! — Mother Jones

A TEN-YEAR-OLD lad in Indianapolis who was arrested for picking up coal along the side of railroad tracks is now in jail. If the boy had known enough to steal the whole railroad he would be heralded as a Napoleon of finance. — Mother Jones

The miners lost because they had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets. In the end, bayonets always win. — Mother Jones

Freedom for the working class! — Mother Jones

That is, the wife must care for what the husband cares for if he is to remain resolute. — Mother Jones

I preferred sewing to bossing little children. — Mother Jones

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes. — Mother Jones

I know that there are no limits to which the powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery — Mother Jones

My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing. — Mother Jones

Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time. — Mother Jones

Poetic injustice ... having made over Japan in our own image. The Japanese, ... are now, next to us, the greatest consumers of meat in the world. — Mother Jones

All the average human being asks is something he can call a home; a family that is fed and warm; and now and then a little happiness; once in a long while an extravagance. — Mother Jones

If they want to hang me, let them. And on the scaffold I will shout Freedom for the working class! — Mother Jones

Whatever your fight, don't be ladylike. — Mother Jones

Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands. — Mother Jones

The militant not the meek shall inherit the earth! — Mother Jones

My teachers treated me as a diamond in the rough, someone who needed smoothing. — Mother Jones

The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society. — Mother Jones

Some day the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit! — Mother Jones

But in Shimabukuro's hands, as he breaks out experimental jazz, lays down a steady blues train, or shreds on rock anthems, this little jumping flea becomes a melodic monster. — Mother Jones

I hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators. — Mother Jones

I learned in the early part of my career that labor must bear the cross for others' sins, must be the vicarious sufferer for the wrongs that others do. — Mother Jones