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"Someone who does an act. In a democratic society, you're supposed to be an activist; that is, you participate. It could be a letter written to an editor."
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"If a moneyed man had a "corny mind, a flatterer would immediately start chasing him like a hungry hen!"

"A government which is not liked by the artists is certainly a bad government, because artist sees very well what is behind the masks!"

"An honest government is the childish dream of the gullible men!"

"Our spiritual history is the history of God-ventriloquists! The truth is that the voice of God is the voice of cunning Man, the ventriloquist's voice!"

"In any country where there is a dishonorable government, there is certainly a dishonorable nation!"

"Most of the time it is a good job and a good honour to fight against people's values, because most of the time people's values are irrational and absurd!"
Explore more quotes by Studs Terkel


"Why are we born? We're born eventually to die, of course. But what happens between the time we're born and we die? We're born to live. One is a realist if one hopes."


"I want to praise activists through the years. I praise those of the past as well, to have them honored."


"That's why I wrote this book: to show how these people can imbue us with hope. I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic."


"All the other books ask, 'What's it like?' What was World War II like for the young kid at Normandy, or what is work like for a woman having a job for the first time in her life? What's it like to be black or white?"


"People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations."
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