Eugene V. Debs Quotes

Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.

Heed this cry that comes from the hearts of men. Organize the Unorganized.

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

Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection.

An oppressed people will always rise.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

Agitate! Agitate! Ought to be the motto of every reformer. Agitation is the opposite of stagnation - the one is life, the other death.

Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising hell.

Social change without music would be void of soul. Nonviolence without music, meditation, action, and a willingness to take risks probably doesn't exist.

Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure through broad organized aggressive mass action.

In any social revolution the one thing that keeps it alive is hope.

When you look at the times in history when change was brought about, there were two factors: crisis and leadership.

Agitate, agitate, agitate.

You should not neglect agitation; each of you should make it his task.

Only force would produce social change.

History teaches us that the great revolutions aren’t started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better—and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved.

Movements don't die, because struggle doesn't die.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

We all have a potential revolutionary energy inside.

We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.

I have made speeches urging women to adopt methods of rebellion such as have been adopted by men in every revolution.

The Occupy Wall Street project feels like a burning ember that might light the torch of justice and inflame our longing for freedom.

There never was a social change in America without angry people at the heart.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

Ours is a country where anything can be accomplished if enough people get angry... because, in America, we act on our collective anger.