Speech from The Great Dictator, 1940
Written, directed, and produced by Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I
don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if
possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another,
human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We
don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room
for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has
goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives
abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our
cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More
than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness
and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all
will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature
of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal
brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions
throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children,
victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To
those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of
men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators
die, and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so
long as men die, liberty will never perish....
Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you -
who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel,
who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds
and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men.
You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the
unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for
slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written "the kingdom of God is
within man" - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you. You
the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create
happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful,
to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let
us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent
world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and
old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to
power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will.
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to
fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national
barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for
a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's
happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
...The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out
of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new
world where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality.
...The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly.
He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, the
glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up... Look
up.
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