1.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
Mother Jones
I queried an incarcerated individual once about why he was behind bars and he replied that he had swiped a pair of shoes. I responded that if he had filched a railroad, then he'd be a Senator in the US Congress.
2.
My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing.
Mother Jones
3.
You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
Mother Jones
4.
I know that there are no limits to which the powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery
Mother Jones
5.
Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time.
Mother Jones
6.
I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children.
Mother Jones
7.
Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living
Mother Jones
8.
Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.
Mother Jones
9.
If they want to hang me, let them. And on the scaffold I will shout Freedom for the working class!
Mother Jones
10.
The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society.
Mother Jones
11.
I'm not a lady, I'm a hellraiser
Mother Jones
12.
God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.
Mother Jones
13.
Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles, reaching thin little hands into the machinery to repair snapped threads
Mother Jones
14.
I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression.
Mother Jones
15.
I believe that no man who holds a leader's position should ever accept favors from either side. He is then committed to show favors. A leader must stand alone.
Mother Jones
16.
Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination
Mother Jones
17.
Your ancestors fought for you to have a share in that institution over there. It's yours. See the school board, and every Friday night hold your meetings there. Have your wives clean it up Saturday morning for the children to enter Monday. Your organization is not a praying institution. It's a fighting institution. It's an educational institution along industrial lines. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!
Mother Jones
18.
No matter what the fight, don't be ladylike!
Mother Jones
19.
a TEN-YEAR-OLD lad in Indianapolis who was arrested for picking up coal along the side of railroad tracks is now in jail. If the boy had known enough to steal the whole railroad he would be heralded as a Napoleon of finance.
Mother Jones
20.
Some day the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit!
Mother Jones
21.
I want you to pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don't' fear a governor; don't fear anybody. You pay the governor; he has the right to protect you. You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will.
Mother Jones
22.
I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country. You don't need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!
Mother Jones
23.
The militant not the meek shall inherit the earth!
Mother Jones
24.
All the average human being asks is something he can call a home; a family that is fed and warm; and now and then a little happiness; once in a long while an extravagance.
Mother Jones
25.
I'm not a humanitarian, I'ma hell-raiser.
Mother Jones
26.
I would fight God Almighty Himself if He didn't play square with me
Mother Jones
27.
You must stand for free speech in the streets.
Mother Jones
28.
In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?
Mother Jones
29.
Out of labor's struggle in Arizona came better conditions for the workers, who must everywhere, at all times, under advantage and disadvantage work out their own salvation
Mother Jones
30.
Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands.
Mother Jones
31.
I will tell the truth wherever I please.
Mother Jones
32.
I hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators.
Mother Jones
33.
What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.
Mother Jones
34.
I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false.
Mother Jones
35.
My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.
Mother Jones
36.
But in Shimabukuro's hands, as he breaks out experimental jazz, lays down a steady blues train, or shreds on rock anthems, this little jumping flea becomes a melodic monster.
Mother Jones
37.
Life comes to the miners out of their deaths, and death out of their lives
Mother Jones
38.
My teachers treated me as a diamond in the rough, someone who needed smoothing.
Mother Jones
39.
Sometimes it seemed to me I could not look at those silent little figures; that I must go north, to the grim coal fields, to the Rocky Mountain camps, where the labor fight is at least fought by grown men
Mother Jones
40.
I'm not afraid of the press or the Militia.
Mother Jones
41.
I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
Mother Jones
42.
And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.
Mother Jones
43.
I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people.
Mother Jones
44.
I have always advised men to read
Mother Jones
45.
Today the white child is sold for two dollars a week to the manufacturers.
Mother Jones
46.
What is a good enough principle for an American citizen ought to be good enough for the working man to follow.
Mother Jones
47.
I am Mother Jones. The Government can't take my life and you can't take my arm, but you can take my suitcase.
Mother Jones
48.
You know I took an oath to tell the truth when I took the witness stand
Mother Jones
49.
I believe that movements to suppress wrongs can be carried out under the protection of our flag.
Mother Jones
50.
I want to hold a series of meetings all over the country and get the facts before the American people
Mother Jones
