Charlie Chaplan wrote and spoke these words many, many years ago as part of "The Great Dictator (1940)." I would recommend watching the movie, for the sake of this man's contribution to comics and film, but mostly for the passionate speech he gives.
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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
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!"
