Guy Standing Quotes

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.

We happen to be the vanguard of that revolutionary struggle because we are the most dispossessed.

No doubt it is also necessary to improve the classes who now oppress you, but you will never succeed in doing this unless you begin by improving yourselves.

Civil rights activists and union activists shared not just common values and objectives but also common enemies.

If you ever think about me, and you ain't gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don't want myself on your mind if you're not going to work for the people.

The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.

The revolution is like a vessel filled with the pulsating heartbeat of millions of working people.

Therefore, our fight must primarily be a political mass struggle with revolutionary goals.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

I set out to create a means whereby music could be a way of vindicating the rights of the masses.

‘Down with imperialism!’ ‘Down with the warlords!’ ‘Down with the corrupt officials!’ ‘Down with the local tyrants and evil gentry!’ -- these political slogans have grown wings, they have found their way to the young, the middle-aged and the old, to the women and children in countless villages, they have penetrated into their minds and are on their lips. For instance, watch a group of children at play. If one gets angry with another, if he glares, stamps his foot and shakes his fist, you will then immediately hear from the other the shrill cry of "Down with imperialism!

Peoples, hear the signal! Arise, for the last battle The International Fights for the Rights of Man! No higher being can save us, No God, no Kaiser, nor tribune Saving us from misery we ourselves alone must do!

The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight...

It is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom.

Fellow Peasants: No hand will after this day be above your hand… You are the producers. Yours is the power.

Fellow workers and peasants, this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the working people, with the working people, and for the working people. And for this revolution of the working people, by the working people, and for the working people we are prepared to give our lives.

We also know that religion, as the Marxists have always insisted, has, too often, like an opiate, tended to put people to sleep to the reality and the need for the present struggle for peace and justice.

I came out of the womb into the Labour movement.

Injustice has exhausted people but also pushed them to organize and fight back in very sophisticated ways.

Certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation.

Nobody's free until everybody's free.

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible.

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

If not now, then when? If not you, then who? If we are able to answer these fundamental questions, then perhaps we can wipe away the blot of human slavery.