The Great Dictator Speech Text/Transcript

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business.

0:05 I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man – white. We all want to help one another.

0:15 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 and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone.

0:24 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.

0:32 Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

0:40 We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.

0:46 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.

0:56 More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

1:03 The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together.

1:06 The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all.

1:12 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.

1:23 To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair.

1:27 The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.

1:34 The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.

1:40 And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

1:45 Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel!

1:54 Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder.

1:58 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!

2:08 You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!

2:14 Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

2:18 In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men!

2:24 In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness!

2:30 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.

2:40 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.

2:48 By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise.

2:54 They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!

2:59 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 and intolerance.

3:10 Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

3:16 Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!