It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.

With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.

Religion is based on the insistence that over and above all is a purpose and a guiding hand that is beneficent and kind, and would not leave a hair unnumbered or let a sparrow fall unnoticed to the ground. Those who cherish such hallucinations forget that the all-loving power is inflicting tuberculosis, cancer, famine, and pestilence on the trusting, simple sons of men.

It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.

If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man.

Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?

As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.