So one by one the old, dingy, and unsanitary factories will come down— it will be cheaper to build new; and so the steamships will be provided with stoking machinery , and so the dangerous trades will be made safe, or substitutes will be found for their products.
A prolific writer and a Pulitzer-prize winner, Sinclair's work was rooted in and driven by his strong political convictions in socialism. That man who had been sent to Jurgis' father by the boss, he would rise; the man who told tales and spied upon his fellows would rise; but the man who minded his own business and did his work—why, they would "speed him up" till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him into the gutter.”, “Dad, as a good American, believed his newspapers.”, “A large section of the idling classes of England get their incomes by believing that Jesus was born of a virgin and that Jonah swallowed a whale; and with the progress of science they were naturally finding this more and more difficult. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him, and a horrid Fate in his pathway. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. The uproar was appalling, perilous to the ear-drums; one feared there was too much sound for the room to hold--that the walls must give way or the ceiling crack.
Here are 10 left-leaning quotes from Upton Sinclair on his work and his political views. But just as soon as labor is set free, then the price of such work will begin to rise. Do what you can. It is universally and inescabably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.”, “They use everything about the hog except the squeal.”, “One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.”, “It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. Upton Sinclair > Quotes > Quotable Quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I … Who Were the Muckrakers in the Journalism Industry? Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Good, better, best. Here are 10 left-leaning quotes from Upton Sinclair on his work and his political views. There were high squeals and low squeals, grunts, and wails of agony; there would come a momentary lull, and then a fresh outburst, louder than ever, surging up to a deafening climax. And even if science were allowed to try, it could do little, because the majority of human beings are not yet human beings at all, but simply machines for the creating of wealth for others.
"- Profits of Religion, "It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence. After reading these, you'll understand why Sinclair was seen as an inspirational but also provocative figure and why President Theodore Roosevelt, who was president at the time The Jungle was published, found the writer a nuisance. - Upton Sinclair You can change it. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine.
Neither squeals of hogs nor tears of visitors made any difference to them; one by one they hooked up the hogs, and one by one with a swift stroke they slit their throats.
And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests--and so perfectly within their rights! We are the change that we seek. After reading these, you'll understand why Sinclair was seen as an inspirational but also provocative figure and why President Theodore Roosevelt, who was president at the time The Jungle was published, found the writer a nuisance. "- Regarding The Jungle, "The rich people not only had all the money, they had all the chance to get more; they had all the knowledge and the power, and so the poor man was down, and he had to stay down. Open your eyes, look within. In exactly the same way, as the citizens of our Industrial Republic become refined, year by year the cost of slaughterhouse products will increase; until eventually those who want to eat meat will have to do their own killing— and how long do you think the custom would survive then?— To go on to another item— one of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption; and one of the consequences of civic administration by ignorant and vicious politicians, is that preventable diseases kill off half our population. It did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life.”, “To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat- and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.”, “Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded.
'Til your good is better and your better is best. And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work: that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper: of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children --- for all of which things the community has naturally to pay.”, “And now was one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog personality was precious, to whom these hog squeals and agonies had a meaning?”, We’d love your help. Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. And meantime another was swung up, and then another, and another, until there was a double line of them, each dangling by a foot and kicking in frenzy--and squealing. Never let it rest. At the same instant the ear was assailed by a most terrifying shriek; the visitors started in alarm, the women turned pale and shrank back. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. ", "You don't have to be satisfied with America as you find it. Born in 1878, Upton Sinclair is a renowned American author. You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want. They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretence at apology, without the homage of a tear. It was too much for some of the visitors--the men would look at each other, laughing nervously, and the women would stand with hands clenched, and the blood rushing to their faces, and the tears starting in their eyes.
Relentless, remorseless, all his protests, his screams were nothing to it. Upton Sinclair was a well-recognized whistleblower, who was instrumental in exposing the dark secrets of working conditions of the U.S. meat and packaging, coal, oil and automotive industries at that time. It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. ", "The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. For this reason I would seriously maintain that all the medical and surgical discoveries that science can make in the future will be of less importance than the application of the knowledge we already possess, when the disinherited of the earth have established their right to a human existence.”, “It is the music which makes it what it is; it is the music which changes the place from the rear room of a saloon in back of the yards to a fairy place, a wonderland, a little comer of the high mansions of the sky.”, “...Nobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work. ', and 'Fascism is capitalism plus murder.' ', 'I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach. 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.”, “Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid.”, “The old wanderlust had gotten into his blood, the joy of the unbound life, the joy of seeking, of hoping without limit.”, “Can you not see that the task is your task - yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute?”, “So he went on, tearing up all the flowers from the garden of his soul, and setting his heel upon them.”, “It is impossible to get a man to understand something if his livelihood depends on him not understanding.”, “So long as we have wage slavery," answered Schliemann, "it matters not in the least how debasing and repulsive a task may be, it is easy to find people to perform it. They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without pretence at apology, without the homage of a tear.”, “Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure - such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.”, “The rich people not only had all the money, they had all the chance to get more; they had all the know-ledge and the power, and so the poor man was down, and he had to stay down.”, “The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.”, “One could not stand and watch very long without being philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe.... Each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart's desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. You could lay that down for a rule—if you met a man who was rising in Packingtown, you met a knave. The Life and Work of Playwright Berthold Brecht, Biography of Samuel Beckett, Irish Novelist, Playwright, and Poet, Biography of Arthur Miller, Major American Playwright, Biography of George Creel, Journalist and Mastermind of WWI Propaganda, Biography of Edith Wharton, American Novelist, Theodore Roosevelt: Twenty-Sixth President of the United States, M.A., English Literature, California State University - Sacramento, B.A., English, California State University - Sacramento. The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
They are penned up in filthy houses and left to rot and stew in misery, and the conditions of their life make them ill faster than all the doctors in the world could heal them; and so, of course, they remain as centers of contagion , poisoning the lives of all of us, and making happiness impossible for even the most selfish.