If we're to have a future in ...

If we're to have a future in the 21st century, we'll want to be able to say, "Now what was the 20th century like in the United States of America, the most powerful of all countries of that century? What was it like to be an ordinary person?
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 Studs Terkel

Quotes from the same author

You know, 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.
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 Studs Terkel
When I was asked: "Will shame do it?" Meaning: Will welfare people be shamed into getting respectable work? And I said that shame plays the biggest role there is: The biggest shame is that there is so much abundance around but that so many have so little and so few have so much. That's the shame.
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 Studs Terkel
That's what we're missing. We're missing argument. We're missing debate. We're missing colloquy. We're missing all sorts of things. Instead, we're accepting.
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 Studs Terkel
I have a big mouth, and I never met a petition I didn't like, so of course in the McCarthy days I got in trouble.
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 Studs Terkel
Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero'.
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 Studs Terkel