The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat—and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.

in matters of business all men are to be accounted liars;

what more had a man the right to ask than a chance to do something useful, and to get good pay for doing it?

every man lived in terror of losing his job, if another made a better record than he. So from top to bottom the place was simply a seething caldron of jealousies and hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency anywhere about it,

The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.

They were willing to work all the time; and when people did their best, ought they not to be able to keep alive?

They say that the best dog will turn cross if he be kept chained all the time, and it was the same with the man;

What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the past, of the thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the memory that could never be effaced!

there was no deliverance, there was no power even in heaven that could undo the past.

There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.

As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!

the power of concentrated wealth could never be controlled, but could only be destroyed.

Life was a struggle for existence, and the strong overcame the weak, and in turn were overcome by the strongest.