S Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with S. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Slavery does not merely mean a legalised form of subjection.
It means a state of society in which some men are forced to accept from others the purposes which control their conduct.”
Source: Writings And Speeches: A Ready Reference Manual
“Slavery doesn't have any positives.”
“Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact”
“Slavery existed before the formation of this Union. It derived from the Constitution that recognition which it would not have enjoyed without the confederation. If the States had not united together, there would have been no obligation on adjoining States to regard any species of property unknown to themselves.”
“Slavery exists in full vigor, but we do not perceive it, just as in Europe at the end of the Eighteenth Century the slavery of serfdom was not perceived.
People of that day thought that the position of men obliged to till the land for their lords, and to obey them, was a natural, inevitable, economic condition of life, and they did not call it slavery.
It is the same among us: people of our day consider the position of the laborer to be a natural, inevitable economic condition, and they do not call it slavery. And as, at the end of the Eighteenth Century, the people of Europe began little by little to understand that what formerly seemed a natural and inevitable form of economic life-namely, the position of peasants who were completely in the power of their lords-was wrong, unjust and immoral, and demanded alteration, so now people today are beginning to understand that the position of hired workmen, and of the working classes in general, which formerly seemed quite right and quite normal, is not what it should be, and demands alteration.”
Source: Slavery of Our Times
“Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.”
“Slavery had very little to do with the economic success of the West. Just look at the facts and figures and how much slavery actually contributed to development.”
“Slavery happened. That flag stands for segregation. We have monuments to Civil War generals and slave owners, as well as preserved plantations. But we have only one slavery museum, and that was built by a private citizen. We have no national or federal slavery museum. There is no government-funded slavery museum. A proposal to put one in Virginia came through in 2001 and went unfunded and failed. Another one in Richmond reached a similar fate. This is absolutely shameful.”
Source: The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin' Dixie Outta the Dark
“Slavery has as many shapes among us as there are things we need.”
“Slavery has become so engrafted into the policy of the Southern States, that it cannot be eradicated without tearing up by the roots their happiness, tranquillity, and prosperity.”
“Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.”
“Slavery has not been abolished, it has been sanitized”
Source: The Great Pearl of Wisdom
“Slavery holds few men fast; the greater number hold fast their slavery.”
“Slavery in America was perpetuated not merely by human badness but also by human blindness. ... Men convinced themselves that a system that was so economically profitable must be morally justifiable. ... Science was commandeered to prove the biological inferiority of the Negro. Even philosophical logic was manipulated [exemplified by] an Aristotlian syllogism:
All men are made in the image of God;
God, as everyone knows, is not a Negro;
Therefore, the Negro is not a man.”
“Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.”
Source: A History of Warfare
“Slavery is ...an atrocious debasement of human nature.”
Source: The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author
“Slavery is a condition imposed upon individuals or races not sufficiently able to protect or defend themselves, and so long as a race or people expose themselves to the danger of being weak, no one can tell when they will be reduced to slavery.”
Source: Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey
“Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.”
“Slavery is a memory of something we cannot remember, and yet we cannot forget.”
“Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.”
Source: The Underground Railroad
“Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)
“Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any
immediate solution to the problem.”
“Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.”
Source: Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838
“Slavery is an obscenity. It is not just stealing someone's labor; it is the theft of an entire life.”
Source: Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy
“Slavery is bad, but even worse is blind discipleship to hallucinations.”
Source: 7 Billion Gods: Humans Above All
“Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freeman with votes in their hands are left without education.”
“Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole Republic, the dignity of the elective franchise, - all alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free.”
Source: Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions: 1878-1886
“Slavery is dead, but the spirit which animated it still lives.”
“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45
“Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.”
“Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world.”
“Slavery is impossible without the consent of the slave. Fear imprisons the mind, Faith. You either accept this prison by following the rules made by others. Or you break free, by making your own.”
“Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic.”
“Slavery is malignantly aristocratic.”
“Slavery is more mental than anything”
“Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.”
“Slavery is not African history. Slavery interrupted African history.”
“Slavery is not penal in character and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids disturbance.”
“Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this controversy. There is a far more important one to you, and that is, what shall be done with the free negro?”
Source: The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858
“Slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.”
Source: The beauties of Samuel Johnson: maxims and observations. To which are now added, biographical anecdotes of the doctor, his life [&c.].
“Slavery is simply a possession of the mind, before the individual submits their spiritual component to the will of another person or deity.”
“Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.”
“Slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our Nation; that 'tis hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much less a Gentleman, should plead for't.”
Source: Locke: Two Treatises of Government
“Slavery is stupid”
“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.
[For the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 1789]”
Source: Writings: The Autobiography / Poor Richard’s Almanack / Bagatelles, Pamphlets, Essays & Letters
“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.”
Source: The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author
“Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others.”
“Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union.”
Source: The diary of John Quincy Adams, 1794-1845: American diplomacy, and political, social, and intellectual life, from Washington to Polk
“Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union. A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary. The Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation.”