Zora Neale Hurston Quotes

Freedom is like birth. Till we are fully free, we are slaves.

Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave.

No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.

I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.

Liberty is life; slavery is death.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

This is the difference between slavery and freedom. The slave must do what his superior orders him to do, but the free citizen-and this is what freedom means-is in a position to choose his own way of life.

Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.

Death is better than slavery.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

Liberation is not deliverance.

Slavery and freedom cannot exist together.

Emancipation from every kind of bondage is my principle.

Liberty is the greatest blessing that men enjoy, and slavery is the heaviest curse that human nature is capable of …. those who are governed at the will of another, and whose property may be taken from them...without their consent...are in the miserable condition of slaves.

Now I've been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.

No man loveth his fetters, be they made of gold.

Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won. Then never live within the Bond of Slavery.

What is Freedom? ye can tell That which slavery is, too well For its very name has grown To an echo of your own.

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.

Men aspiring to be free can hardly think of enslaving others.

Even a second of freedom is worth more than a lifetime of bondage.

I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing, that no man desires for himself.

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.