Charlie Chaplin final speech in The Great Dictator 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, blackman, 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 or despise one another. In this world, there is room for every one, 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 have shut ourseves in. Machinery, that gives us abundance, has left us in want. Or 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 radio have brough us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodess in man, cries out for universal brothehood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprision 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 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 soo long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers, don`t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regement your lives, tell you what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you like a cattle and 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, unloved and unnatural. Soldiers don`t fight for slavery, fight for liberty! In the seveteenth chapter of St. Lukes`s writings, "The kingdom of GOD is within the hands of 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 beautiful, to make this life a wounderful adventure. Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite, let us fight for a new world, for decent world that will give us a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that 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 an 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. youtube/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:30:23 +0000