“Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.”

"Monarchy is the key to our liberty," http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/29/comment.politics1, The Observer (2007-07-29)

Letter to his wife (Congo, My Country)

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p. 13

Quoted in the Congressional Record, 11 December 1971 http://books.google.com/books?id=ltuwtwQcKHwC&q=%22There+are+no+great+men+there+are%22+%22only+great+challenges+which+ordinary+men+like+you+and+me+are++forced+by+circumstances+to+meet%22&pg=PA46480#v=onepage.

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 155, "Willem de Kooning"

2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)
Context: There was a time in my country's history where one in every seven human beings was the property of another. In law, they were regarded only as articles of commerce, having no right to travel or to marry or to own possessions. Because families were often separated, many were denied even the comfort of suffering together. For 250 years the captives endured an assault on their culture and their dignity. The spirit of Africans in America did not break. Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted. Small men took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters. Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience. Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice. A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions. And yet in the words of the African proverb, no fist is big enough to hide the sky. All of the generations oppressed under the laws of man could not crush the hope of freedom and defeat the purposes of God.

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

Source: As a Man Thinketh

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