John Newton: Although my memory's fading, I remember two things. I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.
William Wilberforce: You wake me up to give me medicine to help me sleep?
Richard the Butler: Great changes are easier than small ones. Sir Francis Bacon.
William Wilberforce: Also, Barbara and I have discovered that we're both impatient and prone to rash decisions. But she wants to tell you about it herself.
William Wilberforce: I thought time might have changed you.
John Newton: It has. I'm older.
Pitt the Younger: I need an answer, Wilber. Do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the lord - or change the world?
Lord Tarleton: I can hardly believe my ears.
Heckler: And we can hardly believe your mouth.
Barbara Spooner: It seems to me, that if there is a bad taste in your mouth, you spit it out. You don't constantly swallow it back.
William Wilberforce: Oh, if the House of Lords could hear the idiotic way we carry on, they'd ban anyone under the age of 30 from holding high office again.
Duke of Clarence: Revolution is like the pox. It spreads from person to person.
William Wilberforce: I bow to my honorable friend's superior knowledge and experience in all matters regarding the pox.
William Wilberforce: We just have to have faith in his integrity.
Lord Charles Fox: Integrity?
William Wilberforce: Where are you going?
Lord Charles Fox: To look up the word integrity in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary.
Pitt the Younger: You act like you've never seen slavery before.
William Wilberforce: For me, it's like arsenic. Each new tiny dose doubles the effect.
Pitt the Younger: As your Prime Minister, I urge you caution.
William Wilberforce: And as my friend?
Pitt the Younger: To hell with caution.
Duke of Clarence: Noblesse oblige.
Lord Tarleton: What the bloody hell does that mean?
Duke of Clarence: It means: my nobility obliges me to recognize the virtue of an exceptional commoner.
Pitt the Younger: We cracked crowns, didn't we?
William Wilberforce: We left the heads intact.
Pitt the Younger: Because we're so pathetically English.
William Wilberforce: An imperfect order is better than no order at all.
Thomas Clarkson: No! We must fight for a perfect order.
John Newton: Besides, people like you too much to let you live a life of solitude.
William Wilberforce: Haven't you chosen solitude?
John Newton: You of all people should know I can never be alone.
Barbara Wilberforce: You're discussing politics with your eyes. You might as well do it with your mouths.
William Wilberforce: Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a slave ship. The Madagascar. It has just returned from the Indies where it delivered 200 men, women and children to Jamaica. When it left Africa, there were 600 on board. The rest died of disease or despair. That smell - is the smell of death. Slow, painful death. Breath it in. Breath it deeply. Take those handkerchiefs away from your noses! There, now. Remember that smell. Remember the Madagascar! Remember, that God made men equal.
Thomas Clarkson: Why did you wait until your butler had left before you got out of the box?
William Wilberforce: They already think I'm mad.
