“They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.”

— James Russell Lowell

St. 4
"Stanzas on Freedom" (1843)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 7, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing,…" by James Russell Lowell?

James Russell Lowell 175

American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat 1819–1891

Related quotes

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.”

William Drummond of Logiealmond (1770–1828) Scottish diplomat and Member of Parliament, poet and philosopher

in Academical Questions (1805), Preface, p. 15 http://books.google.com/books?id=U9FOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR15

“A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Their Morals and Ours (1938)
Context: (On the American Civil War) "History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!"

“Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.”

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

“Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear;
The sweetest freedom is an honest heart.”

John Ford (dramatist) (1586–1639) dramatist

Act I, sc. iii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)

“The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sara Grimki and Abby Kelly went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women.”

Lucy Stone (1818–1893) American abolitionist and suffragist

The Progress of Fifty Years (1893)
Context: The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sara Grimki and Abby Kelly went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women. The Anti-Slavery Society rent itself in twain over the subject. The Church was moved to its very foundation in opposition.