Quotes by Abolitionists - Page 2

Every human being has like Socrates an attendant spirit and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do it always cautions us what not to do.
Lydia M. Child
It is only liquid currents of thought that move men and the world.
Wendell Phillips
Humanity is the Son of God.
Theodore Parker
An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.
Lydia M. Child
Make the world better.
Lucy Stone
Health lies in labor and there is no royal road to it but through toil.
Wendell Phillips
No music is so pleasant to my ears as that word-father.
Lydia M. Child
The cure for all ills and wrongs the cares the sorrows and the crimes of humanity all lie in the one word 'love.' It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.
Lydia M. Child
Pillars are fallen at thy feet Fanes quiver in the air A prostrate city is thy seat And thou alone art there.
Lydia M. Child
Democracy is direct self-government over all the people for all the people by all the people.
Theodore Parker
Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection - they have many friends and few enemies.
Wendell Phillips
Before me even as behind God is and all is well.
John Greenleaf Whittier
Yet in the maddening maze of things And tossed by storm and flood To one fixed trust my spirit clings I know that God is good!
John Greenleaf Whittier
Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man.
John Greenleaf Whittier
One on God's side is a majority.
Wendell Phillips
Our victory is sure to come and I can endure anything but recreancy to principle.
Lucy Stone
Common sense does not ask an impossible chessboard but takes the one before it and plays the game.
Wendell Phillips
Ef women want any rights more'n dey got why don't dey jes' take 'em and not be talkin' about it.
Sojourner Truth
What the Puritans gave the world was not thought but action.
Wendell Phillips
You will find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others?...Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
Lydia M. Child
No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear But grateful take the good I find The best of now and here.
John Greenleaf Whittier
An easy thing O Power Divine To thank thee for these gifts of Thine For summer's sunshine winter's snow For hearts that kindle thoughts that glow But when shall I attain to this- To thank Thee for the things I miss?
Thomas W. Higginson
Baby bye Here's a fly Let us watch him you and I. How he crawls Up the walls Yet he never falls.
Theodore Tilton
Shoot if you must this old gray head But spare your country's flag she said.
John Greenleaf Whittier
The craven's fear is but selfishness like his merriment.
John Greenleaf Whittier
Through the dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light Up the blackness streaking Knowing God's own time is best In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking!
John Greenleaf Whittier
Reason's voice and God's Nature's and Duty's never are at odds.
John Greenleaf Whittier
What is defeat? Nothing but education nothing but the first step to something better.
Wendell Phillips
There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.
Thomas W. Higginson
Our toil is sweet with thankfulness Our burden is our boon The curse of earth's gray morning is The blessing of its noon.
John Greenleaf Whittier
We may draw good outof evil we must not do evil that good may come.
Maria Weston Chapman
Pain is hard to bear.... But with patience day by day Even this shall pass away.
Theodore Tilton
Every man meets his Waterloo at last.
Wendell Phillips
Democracy means not "I am as good as you are " but "You are as good as I am."
Theodore Parker
What is defeat? Nothing but education nothing but the first step toward something better.
Wendell Phillips
Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.
Wendell Phillips
I am in earnest I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not retreat a single inch and I will be heard.
William Lloyd Garrison
Christianity is a battle not a dream
Wendell Phillips
Revolutions are not made they come.
Wendell Phillips
Physical bravery is an animal instinct moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage.
Wendell Phillips
Peace hath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew.
John Greenleaf Whittier
You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned 70 or given up all hope of the Presidency.
Wendell Phillips
Noble discontent is the path to heaven.
Thomas W. Higginson
[A] woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.
Frederick Douglass
Methinks I see the sunset light flooding the river valley, the western hills stretching to the horizon, overhung with trees gorgeous and glowing with the tints of autumn -- a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
John Greenleaf Whittier
The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
John Greenleaf Whittier
You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and M a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedoms swift winged angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in the bands of iron! O that I were free! O, that if I were on one of your gallant decks, under your protecting wing! Alas! Betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O, that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God! Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand. Get caught, or clear, I'll try it. I had as well die with ague as the fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; 100 miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God is helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This is very bay shall yet bear me into freedom. The steamboats steered in the Northeast course from Northpoint. I will do the same; and when I get to the head of the bay, I will turn my canoe adrift, and walked straight through Delaware into Pennsylvania. When I get there, I shall not be required to have a pass; I can travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and, come what will, I am off. Meanwhile, I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I be free? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides I am but a boy, and all boys are bound to some one. It may be that my misery and slavery will only increase the happiness when I get free there is a better day coming. [62 – 63]
Frederick Douglass
If young men and young women are brought up to consider frugality contemptible, and industry degrading, it is vain to expect they will at once become prudent and useful, when the cares of life press heavily upon them.
Lydia Maria Francis Child
The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.
Lucretia Mott
They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
Frederick Douglass
None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.
Lydia M. Child
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.
Lydia Maria Francis Child
The brightest skies are always foreshadowed by dark clouds
Harriet Jacobs
e have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand.
Frederick Douglass
My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
Frederick Douglass
For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage.
Frederick Douglass
The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness.
Frederick Douglass
Ah, if he had ever been a slave he would have known how difficult it was to trust a white man.
Harriet Jacobs
There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
Frederick Douglass
And what is that religion that sanctions, even by its silence, all that is embraced in the 'Peculiar Institution'? If there can be any thing more diametrically opposed to the religion of Jesus, than the working of this soul-killing system - which is as truly sanctioned by the religion of America as are her minsters and churches - we wish to be shown where it can be found.
Sojourner Truth