Air Quote by James Mansfield

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

— William Cowper

The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, and so everyone who breathes it becomes free. Everyone who comes to…

— William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to…

— Albert Camus

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.

— George Bernard Shaw

Every human on the planet is descended from both slaves and slave owners. What makes Britain unusual is not that we engaged in the…

— Daniel Hannan

Remember, Sir, that [England] began the slave trade!

— Benjamin Franklin

Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.

— James Thomson

A Briton even in love should be A subject, not a slave!

— William Wordsworth

It the British System is the most gigantic system of slavery the world has yet seen, and therefore it is that freedom gradually disappears…

— Henry Charles Carey

Slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our Nation; that…

— John Locke

“Then I am fundamentally a slave, I whom you call the most glorious king of all?” said Arthur. “No man is free who needeth…

— Thomas Berger

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven…

— Arthur Conan Doyle