Tommy Douglas Quotes - Page 2

We are not anti-American. We do not dislike Americans though we abhor American imperialism in all its manifestations. But then, so do many Americans. Many of them have said that even more forthrightly than we have, and many of them have suffered more than any of us for their plain speaking.

Those who want to burn books are either afraid of the ideas contained within the covers or they haven't the courage to stand up for the views which they themselves profess to hold.

If ever we needed in this country to adopt a new attitude towards homosexuality, this is the time. Instead of treating it as a crime, and driving it underground, we ought to recognize it for what it is: it's a mental illness, it's a psychiatric condition which ought to be treated sympathetically by psychiatrists and social workers.

Setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom.

I am sure that hon. members will realize that I am not drawing on my imagination when I state that last fall there were children going to school in Saskatchewan with only sacking wrapped around their feet. We have gone into homes and found mothers and children lying on piles of bedding in the corner; they did not have the proper bedding equipment or the proper clothing to meet the rigours of a very cold winter.

A recession is when your neighbour has to tighten his belt. A depression is when you have to tighten your own belt. And a panic is when you have no belt to tighten and your pants fall down.

We agree with the statement contained in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, written by Pope Leo XIII, that "anything which dominates the life of the community should be owned by the community." That is the basis upon which we believe there should be government ownership of monopolistic enterprises.

I remember burying a girl fourteen years of age who had died with a ruptured appendix... I buried a good many people that I knew, some of whom I loved.

To accept the principal that "all power proceeds from the barrel of a gun" is to accept a society which will be dominated by those with the biggest guns.

Houdini used to pull rabbits out of a hat, but he never tried to make a living out of selling them when he had pulled them out of the hat

At this season of the year we draw close to Good Friday. All the eyes of the world will turn back to "a green hill far away, without a city wall," where the founder of Christianity was crucified by those forces of selfishness, greed, and lust for gain that are still at work in the world. It seems to me that unless we do something in Canada about the question of the export of war materials there will be another crucifixion - the crucifixion of a generation of young men, crucified upon a cross of nickel.

I went around to the little schoolhouses, talking like a professor, explaining our platform. We were lucky if the collection gave us enough for gas to get to the next place. We encouraged questions, and people asked us if it was true we were going to take their farms, like the Soviets in Russia, and did we believe in God.

Will it be a great source of comfort to certain Canadian boys to know that the bullet that maimed them for life was made from Canadian nickel sold by the International Nickel Company?