Samuel Gompers Quotes

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.

… neither the sanctions of international law nor the justice of a cause can be depended upon for a fair settlement of differences, when they come into conflict with a strong political necessity on the one side opposed to comparative weakness on the other.

It is always the right of the mighty which prevails over the weak, and that is very primitive.

Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us.

But as well may you, when urging a man up-hill with a heavy load upon his back, and with your lash also upon his back, tell him, that be has nothing to do either with the load or the lash.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it.

Often the masses are plundered and do not know it.

One Law for the Lion and the Ox is oppression.

Exploit us, but exploit us fairly.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

In his over-anxiety not to offend the powerful who have done wrong, President Wilson scrupulously refrains from saying one word on behalf of the weak who have suffered wrong.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

The lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.

If you have maximum liberty then the strong can destroy the weak, and if you have absolute equality, you cannot have absolute liberty …. Total liberty can be dreadful, total equality can be equally frightful.

Can you even begin to fathom the arduous, debasing journey people endure to serve you comfortably in the luxury you are so accustomed to?

Equality is a monster.

Coalitions are but the unjust subjection of one people to another.

The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them

Popery and Slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand, sometimes one goes first. Sometimes the other, in a door, but the other is always following close at hand.

I believe one half of the world is born for the convenience of the other half

As men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.

… injustice breeds injustice

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed.