Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt? <p> No! true freedom is to … - James Russell Lowell

The question of common sense is always "What is it good for?"—a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. And in this case, also, the prudent will prepare themselves to encounter what they cannot prevent. Some people advise us to put on the brakes, as if the movement of which we are conscious were that of a railway train running down an incline. But a metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home and imbed it in the memory.

’Tain’t by turnin’ out to hack folks
You’re agoin’ to git your right,
Nor by lookin’ down on black folks
Coz you’re put upon by white;
Slavery ain’t o’ nary color,
’Tain’t the hide thet makes it wus,
All it keers fer in a feller
’S jest to make him fill its pus.