William Lloyd Garrison

Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present.

I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard!

in The Liberator 1 January 1831 ‘Salutatory Address’

The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers.

Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.

With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

That which is not just is not law.

Boston abolitionist

Since the creation of the world there has been no tyrant like Intemperance, and no slaves so cruelly treated as his.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

The compact which exists between the North and the South is ‘a covenant with death and an agreement with hell’.

resolution adopted by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 27 January 1843; see Bible 40:24

I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation.

Our country is the world—our countrymen are all mankind.

The Liberator 15 December 1837 ‘Prospectus’

William Lloyd Garrison

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