Henri Grégoire

“Lettre aux citoyens de couleur et nègres libres de Saint-Domingue et des autres isles francoises de l’Amerique (Paris: Imprimerie du Patriote Français, 1791)”

“The more denuded a man is of virtues, the more he seeks to surround himself with frivolous distinctions. [...] But since pride unfortunately is the most tenacious of passions, the reign of prejudice has been prolonged, for man seems not to be able to attain truth until he has exhausted all of error's possibilities.”

“Kings are in the moral order what monsters are in the physical. Courts are the workshops of crimes, the lair of tyrants. The history of kings is the martyrology of nations.”

“Assuredly no one of us would ever propose to retain in France the fatal race of kings; we all know but too well that dynasties have never been anything else than rapacious tribes who lived on nothing, but human flesh. It is necessary completely to reassure the friends of liberty. We must destroy this talisman, whose magic power is still sufficient to stupefy many a man. I move accordingly that you sanction by a solemn law the abolition of royalty.”