Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.

To be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship. When some one sent a cracked plate to China to have a set made, every piece in the new set had a crack in it.

No class is safe unless government is so arranged that each class has in its hands the means of protecting itself. That is the idea of republics.

The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

Organize, and stand together. Claim something together, and at once; let the nation hear a united demand from the laboring voice, and then, when you have got that, go on after another; but get something.

Insurrection of thought always precedes the insurrection of arms.

Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.