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To maintain that Slavery is in itself sinful, in the face of all that is said and written in the Bible upon the subject, with so many sanctions of the relation by the Deity himself, does not seem to me to be little short of blasphemous! It is a direct imputation upon the wisdom and justice, as well as the declared ordinances, of God, as they are written in the inspired oracles, to say nothing of their manifestations in the universe around us.
— Alexander H. Stephens (1812-1883), Vice President, Confederate States of America
We prefer self-government with danger to servitude with tranquility.
— Kwame Nkrumah (1900-1972), Founder of Ghana
He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in.
— Ursula K. Le Guin (1929- ), American writer
And if the white man thought that Asians were a low, filthy nation, Asians could still smile with relief — at least they were not Africans. And if the white man thought that the Africans were a low, filthy nation, Africans in southern Africa could still smile — at least they were not bushmen. They all have their monsters.
— Bessie Head (1937-1986), South African writer, educator
We work by exorcising incessant superstition that there are mysterious tribal gods against you. Nature has neither rewards nor punishments, only consequences. You can use science to make it work for you. There’s only nothingness and chaos out there until the human mind recognizes it.
— Edwin H. Land (1909-1991), American scientist, inventor
Sense has ever been centered in the few …. Votes should be weighed, not counted. The State must sooner or later be wrecked where the majority rules and ignorance decides.
— Friedrich Von Schiller (1759-1805), German dramatist, historian
The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whosoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily deprives others of the right to listen to those views.
— C. Vann Woodward (1908-1999), American historian
But what certainty is there about money, which, after all, holds all the world together? It depends on the good will of a few capitalists to keep the agreement that one metal is worth more than another.
— Ivar Keuger (1880-1932), Swedish industrialist
Every great scientific truth goes through three states: First, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it.
— Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) Swiss-born American naturalist
If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.
— Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish historian, sociological writer
