“If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.”

— Upton Sinclair , book The Jungle

Source: The Jungle

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Upton Sinclair 50

American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist 1878–1968

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“You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.”

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Misattributed
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“Notwithstanding all the honor which this country has bestowed upon the living and all the reverence that has marked its attitude toward the dead who have served us in a military capacity, we are not a warlike Nation. As a people we have not sought military glory. Because of our fortunate circumstances, such wars as we have waged have been for the purpose of securing conditions under which peace would be more permanent, liberty would be more secure, and justice would be more certain. It was this principle that peculiarly characterized the forces who acknowledged as their commander in chief Abraham Lincoln.”

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As quoted in Germanism from Within (1916) by Alexander Duncan Mclaren
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Variant: Germany must have her place in the sun. (is not of Wilhelm himself but of Bernhard von Bülow

“If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.”

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Upton Sinclair 50

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