Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said t… - Eugene V. Debs

While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

The economic unity of the workers must first be effected before there can be any progress towards emancipation. The interests of the millions of wage workers are identical, regardless of nationality, creed, or sex, and if they will only open their eyes to this simple, self-evident fact, the greatest obstacle will have been overcome and the day of victory draw near.

I left that church with rich and royal hatred of the priest as a person, and a loathing for the church as an institution, and I vowed that I would never go inside a church again.

[Eugene V. Debs, describing his teenage reaction to a hellfire lecture by a priest]

Revolutionary tactics must harmonize with revolutionary principles. We could better hope to succeed with reactionary principles and revolutionary tactics than with revolutionary principles and reactionary tactics.