Welcome to our collection of quotes by Jimmy Hoffa. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Jimmy Hoffa
James Riddle Hoffa (born February 14, 1913 – disappeared July 30, 1975, declared dead July 30, 1982) was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971.
From an early age, Hoffa was a union activist, and he became an important regional figure with the IBT by his mid-twenties. By 1952, he was the national vice-president of the IBT and between 1957 and 1971 he was its general president. He secured the first national agreement for teamsters' rates in 1964 with the National Master Freight Agreement. He played a major role in the growth and the development of the union, which eventually became the largest by membership in the United States, with over 2.3 million members at its peak, during his terms as its leader.
Hoffa became involved with organized crime from the early years of his Teamsters work, a connection that continued until his disappearance in 1975. He was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud in 1964 in two separate trials. He was imprisoned in 1967 and sentenced to 13 years. In mid-1971, he resigned as president of the union as part of a commutation agreement with US President Richard Nixon and was released later that year, but Hoffa was barred from union activities until 1980. Hoping to regain support and to return to IBT leadership, he unsuccessfully tried to overturn the order.
Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975. He is believed to have been murdered by the Mafia and was declared legally dead in 1982. Hoffa's legacy continues to stir debate.
I don't need a bodyguard.
Power leads to more power, no matter what your racket, and not only were they rich and influential but they were smart as hell, too.
To the best of my recollection, I must recall on my memory, I cannot remember.
We never had any silk sheets in our family.
Mob guys had muscle, and where in hell do you think employers got the tough guys when they wanted to break a strike?
I don't need bodyguards.
Don't let any man into your cab, your home, or your heart, unless he's a friend of labor.
I may have my faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.
Sure, we loaned money to build hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. So what? Las Vegas borrowers were good customers.
Our rooms were bugged, our phones were tapped, and our lawyer's rooms were broken into and their files stolen. We finally had to hire armed guards with pistols to be able to maintain our records. It was hard to believe we weren't in Russia.
They all know I'm back, very much back, and that I will be the general president again come hell or high water.
From 1955 until 1965 Jimmy Hoffa was as famous as Elvis Presley. From 1965 until 1975 Jimmy Hoffa was as famous as the Beatles.
More apparent to Teamster members than any moral lapses were the tangible gains that had been steadily realized under Hoffa since his advent to power.
In the ten years I was president of the Teamsters, I had raised the membership from eight hundred thousand to more than 2 million and made it the largest single labor union the world.
Run from a knife and rush a gun.
But because we are financially solid, because we do have an organization that is equipped to handle any situation that comes in front of us, we are successful in getting from the employers what are members want and need without strikes.
In the old days all you needed was a handshake. Nowadays you need forty lawyers.
A slab of bread buttered with lard and, if you were lucky, seasoned with salt and pepper, was a luxury.
There are simply no public figures today who so challenge the elite business and government establishment and so champion the working class as Jimmy Hoffa did almost daily and with arrogance.
He's not just the most powerful man in labor, Robert Kennedy had said in the wake of Hoffa's announcement; he's the most powerful man in the country, next to the President.
But to hear Kennedy when he was grandstanding in front of the McClellan Committee you might have thought I was making as much out of the pension fund as the Kennedys made out of selling whiskey.
Hell, I'm not saying I'm an angel, but when it came to dirty tricks I couldn't hold a candle to the Irish Mafia.
I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.