charlie chaplin final speech

The Great Dictator Speech

The great dictator speech lyrics.

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In his first speaking role, Charlie Chaplin makes one of the most moving and thought-provoking speeches in cinematic history. The Great Dictator , a movie written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, premiered on October 15, 1940, while the United States was still promoting appeasement with Nazi Germany.

This speech is still prevalent in today’s culture due to its pathos-evoking delivery and powerful message. Snippets of it can be heard in many places if you listen closely.

Paolo Nutini’s song Iron Sky contains parts of the speech in the bridge, making the song very powerful.

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

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Charlie Chaplin The Great Dictator Speech Transcript

Transcript of Charlie Chaplin’s famous final speech in the film, The Great Dictator (1940).

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Charlie Chaplin: ( 00:00 ) 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’s 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.

Charlie Chaplin: ( 00:40 ) 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 a soul.

Charlie Chaplin: ( 01:12 ) 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. To those are going to hear me, I say do not despair. The misery that is now upon us, 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.

Charlie Chaplin: ( 01:45 ) Soldiers, don’t give you a sales to brutes. Men who despise you, 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 yourself 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.

Charlie Chaplin: ( 02:14 ) Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery. Fight for liberty. 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 man in you. You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You, the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Charlie Chaplin: ( 02:36 ) Then, in the name of democracy, 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 youth a future and old age of security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill that promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Charlie Chaplin: ( 02:59 ) Now want to just fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world to do away with national barriers, to 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, in the name of democracy, let us all unite.

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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's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

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The Great Dictator : A Statement Against Greed, Hate, Intolerance & Fascism (1940)">Charlie Chaplin’s Final Speech in The Great Dictator : A Statement Against Greed, Hate, Intolerance & Fascism (1940)

in Film , History , Politics | June 13th, 2023 Leave a Comment

The narrow “toothbrush mustache” caught on in the late nineteenth century, first in the United States and soon thereafter across the Atlantic. When Charlie Chaplin put one on for a film in 1914, he became its most famous wearer — at least until Adolf Hitler rose to prominence a couple of decades later. By that point Chaplin had become the most famous comedy star in the world, which may have inspired the Nazi Party leader, a known fan of Chaplin’s work, to adopt the same mustache as a kind of tool of self-advancement. Chaplin himself could hardly have approved of his new doppelgänger, and it troubled him to discover their other shared qualities: their births in April of 1889, their poor childhoods, their love of Wagner.

Still, as an inveterate entertainer, Chaplin grasped the comedic potential of his and Hitler’s parallel iconic status. The result, released in 1940, was The Great Dictator , his first genuine sound film. Chaplin had continued making silent pictures, and refining his signature visual humor, well into the era of “talkies.”

But he could only have done so much to ridicule Hitler, who had come to power in large part through speeches broadcast over the radio, without being able to use his voice as well. Yet he delivers his most memorable lines not in the role of Hitler surrogate Adenoid Hynkel, but that of the unnamed Jewish barber who — through, of course, several absurd turns of events — ends up mistaken for Hynkel and made to address the nation .

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor,” says Chaplin-as-the-Barber-as-Hynkel. “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.” Throughout the three-and-a-half-minute monologue, he speaks against “greed,” “cleverness,” “national barriers,” and “the hate of men”; he advocates for “kindness and gentleness,” “universal brotherhood,” “a world of reason,” and “the love of humanity.” These may not be especially precise terms, but, knowing his public well — much better, indeed, than Hitler ever knew his — Chaplin also knew just when to go broad.

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