Benjamin Lay - Actions

Actions

His passionate enmity of slavery fueled by his Quaker beliefs, Lay made several dramatic demonstrations against the practice, the most notable at the 1738 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Quakers. Dressed as a soldier, he concluded a diatribe against slavery by plunging a sword into a Bible containing a bladder of blood-red pokeberry juice, which spattered over those nearby.

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Famous quotes containing the word actions:

    “We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives behind them.”
    —François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–80)

    “Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of beneficence.”
    —Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    “There is a Book
    By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
    On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

    A chronicle of actions just and bright—
    There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
    And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.”
    —William Cowper (1731–1800)