Quotes from The Jungle
15 notable lines from Upton Sinclair · 1906
I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.
These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.
On the meatpacking process, ch. 14 They use everything about the hog except the squeal.
A Packingtown guide's witticism, ch. 3 It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Sinclair, in writings around the novel Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours! CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!
Closing line — the Socialist orator's cry, ch. 31 Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours!
Closing line, repeated It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was porkmaking by machinery, porkmaking by applied mathematics.
On the Packingtown hog-slaughtering floor, ch. 3 It was the incarnation of blind and insensate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs; it was the Great Butcher—it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh.
On the Beef Trust, ch. 29 “Organize! Organize! Organize!”—that was his cry.
The Socialist orator, ch. 31 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.
Jurgis among the destitute, ch. 27 For the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars.
On the petty criminals in jail with Jurgis, ch. 16 Was it permitted to believe that there was nowhere upon the earth, or above the earth, a heaven for hogs, where they were requited for all this suffering?
Watching the hogs slaughtered, ch. 3 They were trying to save their souls—and who but a fool could fail to see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they had not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?
On a mission preaching to the poor, ch. 23 The working-man was to fix his hopes upon a future life, while his pockets were picked in this one.
On religion as the Archfiend's weapon, ch. 31 It was one of the laws of the veselija that no one goes hungry.
On the Lithuanian wedding feast, ch. 1