Benjamin Zephaniah Quotes
The way animals are carted around reminds me of the slavery of my people... The slavery of animals has to be ended too.
Quotes to Explore
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Because animals are property, we consider as 'humane treatment' that we would regard as torture if it were inflicted on humans.
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In Yellowstone National Park, there are more 'do not feed the animals' signs than there are animals you might wish to feed.
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There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about modern French identity and slavery and North Africa, but there simply is no American history before black people.
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I like using animals because they help suspend my reader's disbelief. We have certain ideas about dentists. We don't have many ideas about rhinoceros dentists.
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These Scriptures, therefore, are infinitely far from justifying the slavery under consideration; for it cannot be made to appear that one in a thousand of these slaves has done any thing to forfeit his own liberty.
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I have always loved animals since I was very young.
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I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedom.
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When I need to cry, I think of very sad things, mostly about animals.
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I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.
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Making lasting gifts for animals in our estate plans is perhaps the single most important thing we can do to ensure animals have the strongest possible voice for their protection.
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I've been out all over the world tranquilizing animals.
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I walked around feeling, in a sense, that people of color, we began at the bottom of a slave ship. We were enslaved; we picked cotton. There was Honest Abe, who wore a top hat and was taller than anyone and who said, 'Enough is enough; slavery must end.' And then, black people could stand up again. But after that, we didn't catch up.
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Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us.
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I believe that modern slavery is the most outrageous assault on the rights of an individual. It is something that touches me deeply because I grew up in rural Brazil and could see first-hand how poverty forced people to work in harsh, exploitative conditions.
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I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, have to be revisited, reimagined, so we can move through them.
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I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.
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I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret. But for equality, their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.
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The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery.
Charles B. Rangel
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If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote.
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Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.
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I think adults sometimes don't think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.
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It's hard to sell records when you can get it for free everywhere.
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The way animals are carted around reminds me of the slavery of my people... The slavery of animals has to be ended too.
