Date: 1789

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)

Date: 1789

"In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire [pain and pleasure]: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while"

— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)

Date: 1789

"Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment?"

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)

Date: 1789

"Let any man of candour declare, whether the state of servitude and bondage, in which the poor are held both in France and England, does not merit the name of slavery, and justify the assertion of its universal existence at present, as well as the opinion of its having existed from the remotest a...

— Francklyn, Gilbert (fl. 1780-1792)

Date: May 13, 1789

"[T]he Slave Trade has enslaved their [Africans'] minds, blackened their character and sunk them so low in the scale of animal beings, that some think the very apes are of a higher class, and fancy the Ourang Outang has given them the go-by."

— Wilberforce, William (1759-1833)

Date: 1790

"But though man has, in this manner, been rendered the immediate judge of mankind, he has been rendered so only in the first instance; and an appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to the tribunal of their own consciences, to that of the supposed impartial and well-informed spec...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"The jurisdiction of the man without is founded altogether in the desire of actual praise, and in the aversion to actual blame. The jurisdiction of the man within is founded altogether in the desire of praiseworthiness, and in the aversion to blameworthiness; in the desire of possessing those qua...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"But though the approbation of his own conscience can scarce, upon some extraordinary occasions, content the weakness of man; though the testimony of the supposed impartial spectator of the great inmate of the breast cannot always alone support him; yet the influence and authority of this princip...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"In proportion to the degree of the self-command which is necessary in order to conquer our natural sensibility, the pleasure and pride of the conquest are so much the greater; and this pleasure and pride are so great that no man can be altogether unhappy who completely enjoys them."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"In what cases friendship ought to yield to gratitude, or gratitude to friendship. in what cases the strongest of all natural affections ought to yield to a regard for the safety of those superiors upon whose safety often depends that of the whole society; and in what cases natural affection may,...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)