Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Labor unions have improved human decency and character more than any other group.
In plain terms
Trade unions helped humanity more than any other organization.
What can you take from it?
Collective worker action has advanced social and moral progress.

Where it applies

  • labor rights
  • social reform
  • workplace ethics

Putting it to work

  • support worker rights
  • organize collectively
  • fight for justice

Questions to consider

  • Who truly helps humanity?
  • What is the value of unity?

Another view

Unions have also faced criticism for corruption or inefficiency.

More from Clarence Darrow

  1. Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who will not give her all. She kno…

    Permalink to quote #2
  2. The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches t…

    Permalink to quote #4
  3. In the great flood of human life that is spawned upon the earth, it is not often that a man is born.

    Permalink to quote #1

Related quotes

  1. 'I am a Catholic. I am a pacifist. I am a Christian anarchist. In Russia the enemies of the free worker are the bureaucrats and the communists. In the United S…

    Ammon HennesseyAmmon Hennessey quote #1
  2. Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder - just as animals are…

    Andrew SullivanAndrew Sullivan quote #1
  3. Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.

    Robert SouthRobert South quote #1