Meridel Le Sueur, born Meridel Wharton

Hard times ain't quit and we ain't quit.

Her breasts and arms ached with the beauty of her own forgiveness.

Pears cannot ripen alone. So we ripened together.

These are the stories that never, never die, that are carried like seed into a new country, are told to you and me and make in us new and lasting strengths.

They never die, who have the future in them.

Human history is work history. The heroes of the people are work heroes.

Each generation must go further than the last or what's the use in it?

It's not the suffering of birth, death, love that the young reject, but the suffering of endless labor without dream, eating the spare bread in bitterness, being a slave without the security of a slave.

What happens in a strike happens not to one person alone.... It is a crisis with meaning and potency for all and prophetic of a future. The elements in crisis are the same, there is a fermentation that is identical. The elements are these: a body of men, women and children, hungry; an organization of feudal employers out to break the back of unionization; and the government Labor Board sent to "negotiate" between this hunger and this greed.

Growth is not concerned with itself.

The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed-upon myth of its conquerors.