Speeches - Charlie Chaplin "The Great Dictator Speech"
Transcript follows as from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPqd_9T5Zx4
Transcript:
The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin):
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 men, white. We all want to help one another. Human
beings are like that. We want to live by each others' 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 as
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 man; 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 and 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 a 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's 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 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
their 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
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