this was over the door at the entrance to the project room i had in new york
the show was called re draw at a gallery called Brooklyn Fireproof

the text says: "He had exchanged his birthright of freedom and free thought for a pat on the head from any rump-fed lord"

I found it in the wonderful book The Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Lawrence James, from an apparently anonymous editorial in a British newspaper in the late 19th century