Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotes

Emancipation - what is meant by it? Simply that the slaves shall cease to be held as property and shall henceforth be held and treated as human beings. Simply, that we should take our feet from off their necks.

Let us not despair; it is a blessed cause, and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Already we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied. This is the first fruits of our efforts; let us persevere and our triumph will be complete

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

No one can live under degradation.

The days of humiliation, of second-class citizens and of inequality are over and gone forever.

Because I was born a slave, I love liberty more than you.

Human rights are being violated in so many places. But we don't give up because we know respect for human rights and human dignity is a basic condition for peace.

They tell me: If you see a slave sleeping, do not wake him lest he be dreaming of freedom. I tell them: If you see a slave sleeping, wake him and explain to him freedom.

We say no to the peace that keeps us on our knees, no to the peace that keeps us in chains, no to the false peace that denies the values and contributions of our peoples.

I grew up with injustice and could do nothing about it. But once in America, I had freedom of choice.

There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.

If not now, then when? If not you, then who? If we are able to answer these fundamental questions, then perhaps we can wipe away the blot of human slavery.

I do protect human rights, and I hope I shall always be looked up as a champion of human rights.

If it be not a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is indeed folly to put ourselves to any trouble and expense in order to free them.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

Neither can men, by the same principles, be considered as lands, goods, or houses, among possessions. It is necessary that all property should be inferiour to its possessor. But how does the slave differ from his master, but by chance?

The rights of some must not be enjoyed by denying the rights of others. Neither can we permit states' rights at the expense of human rights.

It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.

The issue of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issues and also one of the most sensitive and controversial.

The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.

Movements begin when oppressed people make - and keep remaking - a deeply inward decision to stop consenting to external demands that contradict a critical inner truth, the truth that they are worthy of respect.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

When you care about human beings, you do your best to not repress and to not let people to repress and to not arm people to repress.

Wherever it is resisted, slaver dies away and freedom grows.