Robert Dale Owen Quotes

If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love, clear your lands from slaves, burden not your children or country with them.

The work does not end with the abolition of slavery but only begins.

It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race.

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.

If not now, then when? If not you, then who? If we are able to answer these fundamental questions, then perhaps we can wipe away the blot of human slavery.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

America must be the moral leader. It is not enough to have power. Power must be used to protect freedom and give all people hope for the opportunity to see the fruit of their own labor.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

I am the law. I am over the slave owners that used to be over me. I am their mayor.

The slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline and thus made unfit for slavery.

The maternal love of the Catholic Church embraces all people. As you know, venerable brother, the Church from the beginning sought to completely eliminate slavery, whose wretched yoke has oppressed many people.

I will never desert the cause of the Africans injured by slavery; I will not disappoint you.

I should have done violence to my convictions of duty, had I not made use of all the lawful means in my power to liberate those people, and assist them to become men and women, rather than leave them in the condition of chattels personal.

Let us not despair; it is a blessed cause, and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Already we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied. This is the first fruits of our efforts; let us persevere and our triumph will be complete

Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever have… redemption songs; redemption songs.

It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.

After you get your freedom, your enemy will respect you.

I will lead my people out of bondage, Lord.

Many of the white people [who] have been instruments in the hands of God for our good, even such as have held us in captivity, are now pleading our cause with earnestness and zeal.

Men of Color, To Arms! The case is before you. This is our golden opportunity. Let us accept it, and forever wipe out the dark reproaches unsparingly hurled against us by our enemies. Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best blessings of our posterity through all time.

The only reason I can hold up my head is because when He set me free He gave me my dignity back.

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).

If there is a thread that unites all of our work, whether it's in Iowa or whether it's in Maryland or whether it's among our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe that it's the thread of human dignity.

I am confident that if we stand for the hope and freedom of others we will make our own freedom more secure.