Henry Morton Stanley

I crossed Africa from East to West and from West to East, and I never saw any excesses committed. I do not think that from this point of view there is a single sovereign living who has done so much for humanity as Leopold II."

England would not have managed the Congo better than King Leopold has done if she had been mistress of it, as she might have become in 1877.

I had on the Congo under my orders three hundred men, English, Germans, Dutch, Portuguese, Belgians. I found no difference between them. All did their best according to their means. All were in the course of duty the object of some charge. …

They discharge their mission under the most difficult conditions, and I Relieve that I may assert that, from the Governor-General down to the humblest official, there is not one guilty of cruelty.

To-day, with its forests pierced and open, its routes, its stations, it is in advance of all other African States. Take the French Congo, the German East Africa, Portuguese West Africa, and compare them. The Congo State prospers in a …

The recitals of atrocities and bad administrations which have of late been spread about are almost all, if not all, pure reports.

I am certain that not one of the countries who are invited by the newspapers to put itself in its (Belgium's) place would have been able to do better.

Socialism is a return to primitive conditions.

Though many illusions are of a character we should gladly cherish, yet the sooner we lose some of them, the sooner we gain the power of seeing clearly into things. The one who possesses least has the best chance of becoming wise. The man …

Religion acts as a moral gardener, to weed out, or suppress, evil tendencies, which, like weeds: grow.

As seen in my loneliness, there was this difference between the Bible and the newspapers. The one reminded one that, apart from God, my life was but a bubble of air, and it bade me remember my Creator; the other fostered arrogance and …

I desire some generous and opulent philanthropist, who shall permit me a force for commerce in central Africa.

We have attacked and destroyed 28 large towns, and 3 or 4 score villages.

The barge was an invention of my own. It was 40 feet long, 6 feet beam, and 30 inches deep, of Spanish cedar 3/8 inches thick.

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?