Eugene V. Debs Quotes

We are making our revolution slowly and by constitutional methods.

Real freedom will require many changes in the nation’s political and social philosophies and institutions.

Progressive change in this country has never come from above.

When I grow up I’m going to change the government.

If reforms do not come when people are at peace, of course, they have to come through violent upheavals, so as I looked out I thought: "Thank God, that this nation has had the courage to face the need of changes before we reached the point where bloodshed was the only way to achieve a change.

The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.

Every reform means awakening. Once truly awakened, the nation will not be satisfied with reform only in one department of life.

Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought.

I believe that Gandhi was correct. Non-violent civil disobedience is the only way to bring about change that allows people to enjoy the change and not get killed in the process.

The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence.

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

Usually, in any revolution people are focused on who wants to have the most power. But the most important thing is the laws that are written during that time.

We're a nation of laws, but the good thing about America, is that laws reside in the people and people can change the laws.

The courts may be the most important instrument for social, economic, and political change.

We did not have a revolution in order to have a democracy.

The Emancipation Proclamation was fraught with consequences, immediate and remote, such as human foresight could not penetrate…..

If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It

… evolution over revolution.

Reform is born of need, not pity. No vital movement of the people has worked down, for good or evil; fermented, instead, it carried up the heaving, cloggy mass.

Beginning reform is beginning revolution.

Violence never has and never will bring constructive change, but my life experience tells me that most change is violent.

All great reforms go together.

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of man change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.

I am for the restoration of order, not for the restoration of the old order.

In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives.