Mother Jones Quotes

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.

Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.

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

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

Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.

I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children.

No matter what the fight, don't be ladylike!

I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression.

I'm not a lady, I'm a hellraiser

Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination

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

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.

I will tell the truth wherever I please.

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!

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.

Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles, reaching thin little hands into the machinery to repair snapped threads

God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.

The militant not the meek shall inherit the earth!

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.

And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.

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!

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

In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?

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