Quote

God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners (morality).

William Wilberforce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Wilberforce
Age: 73 †
Born: 1759
Born: August 24
Died: 1833
Died: July 29
Abolitionist
British Politician
Philanthropist
Politician
Morality
Trade
Objects
Two
Suppression
Great
Reformation
Almighty
Manners
Slave

More quotes by William Wilberforce

Image
The time of reckoning will at length arrive. And when finallly summoned to the bar of God, to give an account of our stewardship, what plea can we have to urge in our defense, if we remain willingly, and obstinately ignorant of the way which leads to life, with such transcendent means of knowing it, and such urgent motives to its pursuit?
William Wilberforce
Image
Servile, and base, and mercenary, is the notion of Christian practice among the bulk of nominal Christians. They give no more than they dare not with-hold they abstain from nothing but what they must not practise.
William Wilberforce
Image
If . . . a principle of true Religion [i.e., true Christianity] should . . . gain ground, there is no estimating the effects on public morals, and the consequent influence on our political welfare.
William Wilberforce
Image
Bountiful as is the hand of Providence, its gifts are not so bestowed as to seduce us into indolence, but to rouse us to exertion.
William Wilberforce
Image
Sulky labor, and the labor of sorrow are little worth: if you could only shed tranquility over the conscience and infuse joy into the soul, you would do more to make the man a thorough worker than if you could lend him the force of Hercules, or the hundred arms of Briareus.
William Wilberforce
Image
Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean.
William Wilberforce
Image
Read the Bible, read the Bible! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any other book, and I as rarely felt the want of any other.
William Wilberforce
Image
God has so made the mind of man that a peculiar deliciousness resides in the fruits of personal industry.
William Wilberforce
Image
Men of authority and influence may promote good morals. Let them in their several stations encourage virtue. Let them favor and take part in any plans which may be formed for the advancement of morality.
William Wilberforce
Image
Africa, your sufferings have been the theme that has arrested & engaged my heart.
William Wilberforce
Image
Oh Lord, purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with the love of thee, animate my sluggish nature and fix my inconstancy, and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing.
William Wilberforce
Image
We are too young to realize that certain things are impossible... So we will do them anyway.
William Wilberforce
Image
If you love someone who is ruining his or her life because of faulty thinking, and you don't do anything about it because you are afraid of what others might think, it would seem that rather than being loving, you are in fact being heartless.
William Wilberforce
Image
What should we suppose must naturally be the consequence of our carrying on a slave trade with Africa? With a country, vast in its extent, not utterly barbarous, but civilized in a very small degree? Does any one suppose a slave trade would help their civilization?
William Wilberforce
Image
The distemper of which, as a community, we are sick, should be considered rather as a moral than a political malady.
William Wilberforce
Image
Of all things, guard against neglecting God in the secret place of prayer.
William Wilberforce
Image
The observance of one commandment, however clearly and forcibly enjoined, cannot make up for the neglect of another which is enjoined with equal clearness and equal force.
William Wilberforce
Image
If there is no passionate love for Christ at the center of everything, we will only jingle and jangle our way across the world, merely making a noise as we go
William Wilberforce
Image
So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.
William Wilberforce
Image
No man has a right to be idle. Where is it that in such a world as this, that health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?
William Wilberforce