Mario Savio’s “Machine Speech” is a powerful address delivered on December 2, 1964, during the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley. Savio was a student activist and prominent leader in the movement, which sought to secure the rights of students to engage in political speech on campus.
The most famous line from this speech is:
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop!”
In this speech, Savio criticizes the university system and, more broadly, institutional structures that he felt suppressed individuality, critical thought, and political expression. He compares the university to a “machine” that grinds down students, treating them as cogs rather than as individuals with agency. Savio calls on students to resist, emphasizing direct, physical action—symbolically “throwing themselves on the gears”—to disrupt the system until change is made.
The speech has since become an iconic moment in American history, symbolizing the 1960s counterculture movement and the fight for civil liberties, inspiring later social and political activism.