Colored Peoples Press Quotes

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.

Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moment's respite deserve only the end of a rope.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other fastened about his own neck.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion

If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.

The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

The world today is divided into the free and the enslaved.

Life without Liberty is far worse than death.

Some people are by nature slaves and will always be so.

Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.

Man is everywhere still in chains.

I fear that, tired of anarchy, you may hope at the end for a return of oppression and that you may welcome the yoke of the first fortunate adventurer who shows up, who, far from consolidating your destiny, will only prolong your servitude

It is bad to have a servant, but worse to have a master.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

All persons who dare to incite serfs and peasants to disobey their landlords shall be arrested and taken to the nearest government office, there to be punished forthwith as disturbers of the public tranquility, according to the laws and without leniency. And should it so happen that even after the publication of the present decree of Her Imperial Majesty any serfs and peasants should cease to give the proper obedience to their landlords ... and should make bold to submit unlawful petitions complaining of their landlords, and especially to petition Her Imperial Majesty personally, then both those who make the complaints and those who write up the petitions shall be punished by the knout and forthwith deported to Nerchinsk to penal servitude for life

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Rebellion! the very word is a confession; an avowal of tyranny, outrage, and oppression. It is taken from the despot's code, and has no terror for others than slavish souls.

War is the second worst activity of mankind, the worst being acquiescence in slavery.

One conquered nation is one too many.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny

The British minister mistakes the Irish character. Had he intended to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar. There is no middle policy … greatly emancipate or fundamentally destroy.

Slavery is the cause of treason and sustains it everywhere it exists.

... not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive to the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body. Chains are worse than bayonets.

It was while you were sleeping that the enemy came. Barbarism, the foe of all that is good, did its work and the tares which it sowed and the evil which threatens to invade everything, is slavery.