Quotes from Tommy Douglas

He was the only man I ever knew who could get money from the rich and votes from the poor with the promise to protect them from each other.

I felt that no boy should have to depend either for his leg or his life upon the ability of his parents to raise enough money to bring a first-class surgeon to his bedside.

The trouble with socialists is that they let their bleeding hearts go to their bloody heads.

The [Liberal] federal government's trouble is that they have a wishbone where they should have a backbone.

The Liberals talk about a stable government but we don't know how bad the stable is going to smell.

I'm sure that the standard of public morality we've helped build will force government in Canada to approve complete health insurance.

Courage, my friend, it's not too late to make the world a better place.

The religion of tomorrow will be less concerned with the dogmas of theology and more concerned with the social welfare of humanity.

To accept the principal that "all power proceeds from the barrel of a gun" is to accept a society which will be dominated by those with the biggest guns.

Will it be a great source of comfort to certain Canadian boys to know that the bullet that maimed them for life was made from Canadian nickel sold by the International Nickel Company?

My dream is for people around the world to look up and to see Canada like a little jewel sitting at the top of the continent.

I don't mind being a symbol but I don't want to become a monument. There are monuments all over the Parliament Buildings and I've seen what the pigeons do to them.

The Bible is like a bull fiddle, you can play almost any tune you want on it.

Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes.

Man can now fly in the air like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, he can burrow into the ground like a mole. Now if only he could walk the earth like a man, this would be paradise.

Setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom.

The greatest way to defend democracy is to make it work.

I remember burying a girl fourteen years of age who had died with a ruptured appendix... I buried a good many people that I knew, some of whom I loved.

Courage, my friends 'tis not too late to build a better world.

Let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt. It may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.

Let's not forget that the ultimate goal of Medicare must be to keep people well rather than just patching them up when they get sick.

My dream is for people around the world to look up and to see Canada like a little jewel sitting at the top of the continent.

We are all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us.

Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world.