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When the learned take neither revelation nor reason for their guide, they fall into as great, and worse errors, than the unlearned; for they only make use of that system of Divine wisdom, which should guide them into truth, when they can find or pick out any thing that will suit their purpose, or that they can pervert to such—the very means of leading themselves and others into error.

— Ottobah Cugoano Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787)

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More quotes by Ottobah Cugoano

Slavery is an evil of the first magnitude, ... and contrary to all the genuine principles of Christianity, and yet carried on by men denominated thereby.

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787)

As to any other laws that slave-holders may make among themselves, as respecting slaves, they can be of no better kind, nor give them any better character, than what is implied in the common report—that there may be some honesty among thieves.

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787)

The farther and wider that the discovery and knowledge of such an enormous evil, as the base and villainous treatment and slavery which the poor unfortunate Black People meet with, is spread and made known, the cry for justice, even virtue lifting up her voice, must rise the louder and higher, for the scale of equity and justice to be lifted up in their defence.

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787)

The holders of men in slavery ... cannot otherwise but expect in one day at last, to meet with the full stroke of the long suspended vengeance of heaven, when death will cut them down to a state as mean as that of the most abjected slave, and to a very eminent danger of a far more dreadful fate hereafter, when they have the just reward of their iniquities to meet with.

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ottobah Cugoano (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.