This is Charlie Chaplin's final speech in The Great Dictator,
a movie made in 1940, at a time when Hitler seemed all powerful and unstoppable.
Hitler had not at this time declared war on America and operation Barbarossa, the
invasion of the USSR, had not yet begun. This is Charlie Chaplin’s film in
every sense of the word for he wrote, directed, produced and starred in it. The
final speech in the film is unarguably one of the greatest speech’s ever given
and It’s relevance to the current
state of affairs today and history as a whole cannot be overlooked.
Barry
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“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 airplane 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 St. Luke, it is written that 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 youth
a future and old age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to
power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to
fulfill 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!” ―
Charlie Chaplin
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