Louis Gossett Jr. Quotes

I'm an exile. My father had the courage to leave with his wife, his mother and three children under twelve. It took more courage to leave, to sacrifice everything for freedom, than to stay.

I escaped from my home country, Bulgaria, to Czechoslovakia and then to the West.

In England I am not English, in India I am not Indian. I am chained to the 1,000 square miles that is Trinidad; but I will evade that fate yet.

My people are gone into captivity for want of knowledge.

How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains? A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain --

Better free in a strange land than a slave at home.

There is not a man among them who would not leave if they believed they could make their escape … Liberty is sweet.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

Exile is my power.

I am not yet born; O fill me with strength against those who would freeze my humanity.

These poor wretches were stolen from their homes, carried to a strange country, and sold to servitude, from which they sought to escape on the first occasion which offered.

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

I grew up with injustice and could do nothing about it. But once in America, I had freedom of choice.

Death is better than slavery.

All I ever want is to return to either Bangladesh, my motherland, or India, my adopted home.

Guys in slavery sang praises to the Lord to deliver them from bondage.

See, it's no in between: you're either free or you're a slave.

It's sort of what the Johnny and Devi stories are about, the idea of always being a slave to something.

When you sit at your desk, if you're lucky, there's a moment when you feel empowered to be someone or something else, to leap into another skin.

There is no slavery but ignorance.

I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.

In spirituals, the talk of heaven and deliverance was code for a better life. 'Crossing the River Jordan' was code, of course, for escaping to freedom.

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

I love the natural world - it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

From deep in the slave hut is somebody calling over 150 years to all of our experiences and all of our ideas on human respect, and all of our ideas on dignity. And I felt like that's just incredibly powerful.