6 quotes
True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear.
Stanzas on Freedom (1843)
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Stanzas on Freedom (1843)
Freedom needs all her poets; it is they
Who give her aspirations wings,
And to the wiser law of music sway
Her wild imaginings.
I du believe with all my soul
In the gret Press's freedom,
To pint the people to the goal
An' in the traces lead 'em.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt? No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!
Stanzas on Freedom (1843)
And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak,
Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.
A Fable for Critics (1848)