Final Speech - Charlie Chaplin

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

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, 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

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

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 be violent and all will be lost

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together

The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men

Cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all

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

To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed

The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.

The hate of men 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, men 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 like cattle, 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 the love of humanity in your hearts

You don’t hate, only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural

Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written

«The kingdom of God is within man», not one man, nor a group of men

But in all men, in you, the people, you the people have the power

The power to create machines, the power to create happiness

You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful

To make this life a wonderful adventure

Let us use that power, let us all unite

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world

That will give men a chance to work

That will give you the future and old age and security

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power

But they lie, they do not fulfil their promise, they never will

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people

Now let us fight to fulfil that promise, let us fight to free the world

To do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will

lead to all men’s happiness

Soldiers, let us all unite!