We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each others’ misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another.
In this world, there is room for everyone. 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 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 remain violent and all will be lost.
The airplane, the radio, and the internet 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 words have the ability to reach billions throughout the world, billions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who read this, I say “Do not despair!”
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of those who fear the way of human progress. Their hatred 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, those 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 worse than 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 a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers! Don’t fight! Stand for liberty!
The future of humanity in within the hands of mankind, not one human nor a group of humans, but in all humans. 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 create a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work for a worthy idea, 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 have and never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!
Now let us stand together to fulfill that promise! Let us stand for a free world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!
Let us stand for a world of logic and reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Humanity, in the name of peace and freedom, let us all unite!
Nobody is going to do it for us. If we want peace, it’s up to each and every single one of us to create it and maintain it. We don’t need any government to give us permission or any aid. This is a worthy idea and all that is required for its realization is that we the people work together.
I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I would like to help everyone if possible.
I’ve been told that this is impossible… To them, I say “everything was once impossible until someone dared to try!”
[embedded content]
Source: Charlie Chaplin‘s The Great Dictator