Norman Thomas: Making

Norman Thomas was American Presbyterian minister and socialist. Explore interesting quotes on making.

Norman Thomas: 30 quotes0 likes

“You will keep America out of the hands of communists by what you do here, you will keep it by making it seem unnecessary to the disadvantaged. It has been the New Deal, it has been democratic socialism which has been a major force from keeping the world from communism.”

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

“We are socialists because we believe this income which we all cooperate in making isn’t divided as it ought to be. […] We do reward men according to deed. We do reward or give to people according to need. No religion would be possible in which that wasn’t done. There are the young, there are the old, there are many whom we have to reward according to their need. But in spite of improvements that have been made, and especially perhaps by my liberal friends who aren't just sure how far to go… we still have a society where there's a great deal of reward not according to deed, not according to need, but according to breed - the choice of your grandfather is very important. And according to the successful greed, which operates not in terms of great contributions to men, but in terms of manipulations of one sort of another.”

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

“All our rulers have said that war is unthinkable, and then we think about it almost all the time. We’ve got to make it unthinkable.”

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

“The ultimate values in the world are those of personality and no theory of the state, whether socialistic or capitalistic, is valid, which makes it master, not servant, of man.”

As quoted in Norman Thomas: Respectable Rebel, Murray B. Seidler, Syracuse University Press (1961) p. 27