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For the next century, we've got to put together what we so carelessly tore apart with so little concern for those who were gonna follow us. ... You've got to sound off.

Studs Terkel

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Studs Terkel
Age: 96 †
Born: 1912
Born: May 16
Died: 2008
Died: October 31
Actor
Author
Historian
Journalist
Music Journalist
Poet Lawyer
Radio Personality
Writer
New York City
New York
Louis Terkel
Together
Tore
Littles
Apart
Little
Gonna
Concern
Follow
Century
Sound
Next
Carelessly

More quotes by Studs Terkel

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When it comes to the news, the corporate view is `objective,' all else is propaganda.
Studs Terkel
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I'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.
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All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
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It is still the arena of those who dream of the City of Man and those who envision a City of Things. The battle appears to be forever joined. The armies, ignorant and enlightened, clash by day as well as night. Chicago is America's dream, writ large. And flamboyantly.
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You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
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When you become part of something, in some way you count. It could be a march it could be a rally, even a brief one. You're part of something, and you suddenly realize you count. To count is very important.
Studs Terkel
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Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.
Studs Terkel
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Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.
Studs Terkel
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An agnostic is a cowardly atheist.
Studs Terkel
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I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.
Studs Terkel
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On the evening bus, the tense, pinched faces of young file clerks and elderly secretaries tell us more than we care to know. On the expressways, middle management men pose without grace behind their wheels as they flee city and job.
Studs Terkel
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I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature. In unbalanced times, balance is as difficult to come by as Parsifal's Grail.
Studs Terkel
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The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
Studs Terkel
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I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic.
Studs Terkel
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At a time when pimpery, lick-spittlery, and picking the public's pocket are the order of the day - indeed, officially proclaimed as virtue - the poet must play the madcap to keep his balance. And ours.
Studs Terkel
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Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
Studs Terkel
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Work is born in us. We take to it kindly or unkindly. The terms may be easy or harsh, but the contract is binding.
Studs Terkel
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My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.
Studs Terkel
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In order for us, black and white, to disenthrall ourselves from the harshest slavemaster, racism, we must disinter our buried history.... We are all the Pilgrim, setting out on this journey.
Studs Terkel
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Hope never trickles down. It always springs up.
Studs Terkel