Labor Activism Quotes & Sayings

I've always been amused by the contention that brain work is harder than manual labor. I've never known a man to leave a desk for a muck-stick if he could avoid it. — John Steinbeck

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining ... . We demand this fraud be stopped. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It launched one worker, Eugene Debs, into a lifetime of activism for labor unions and socialism. Debs was arrested for supporting the strike. Two years later he wrote: The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis for civilization. The time has come to regenerate [renew] society - we are on the eve of a universal change. Like — Howard Zinn

What Friedan gave to the world was, "the problem that has no name." She not only named it but dissected it. The advances of science, the development of labor-saving appliances, the development of the suburbs: all had come together to offer women in the 1950s a life their mothers had scarcely dreamed of, free from rampant disease, onerous drudgery, noxious city streets. But the green lawns and big corner lots were isolating, the housework seemed to expand to fill the time available, and polio and smallpox were replaced by depression and alcoholism. All that was covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial ...
[i]nstead the problem was with the mystique of waxed floors and perfectly applied lipstick. — Betty Friedan

One can furnish a room very luxuriously by taking out furniture rather than putting it in. — Francis Jourdain

Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics. — Voltaire

I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person. — Og Mandino

[Historian] Kevin Starr has written that "the San Diego free speech battles revealed the depths of reaction possible in the threatened middle- and lower-middle classes of California." He argues that vigilantes were recruited from an anxious petty bourgeoisie, "who were uncertain and insecure in what they had gained or thought they had gained by coming to California." As in late Weimar Germany, "the oligarchy, which is to say, the upper-middle and upper classes, loathed and feared the [Industrial Workers of the World]; but oligarchs did not take to the streets as vigilantes. They did, however, encourage the lower-middle classes to do such work. — Justin Akers Chacon

Thanksgiving is America's favorite holiday because it's a time when we put aside our cares, much as the struggling Pilgrims did nearly four centuries ago, and eat a gut-busting meal without worrying about the 'out years.' — David Ignatius

I missed you ... I lied when I said I didn't. From the moment you left, I missed you so much I went out of my
mind ... I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only
an ocean between us. — Sarah J. Maas

The New Deal never rethought the draconian racist immigration restriction policies of the 20s, of course, but its electoral base rested significantly on "ethnic" voters, whose activism was both hemmed in and rewarded by the Democrats. Southern and Eastern Europeans were included as secondary leaders of the new industrial unions, and as entitled citizens qualified for social security, unemployment compensation, and fair labor standards protections, even as workers of color were largely left out of key areas of the welfare state. — David Roediger

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call. — Alain De Botton

The thing most worth doing in this modern world [is to] create jobs that men can work at, and be proud of, and make money by their work. — Nevil Shute

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. — Walt Whitman

After Jacob had worked for Laban for seven years, do you know what happened? Laban fooled him and gave him his ugly daughter Leah. So to marry Rachel, Jacob was forced to work another seven years.

So, you see, children, the Bible clearly teaches us you can never trust an employer. — Joseph Stein