S Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with S. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Slavery is the most insane thing... I don't know that we've ever seen in history, but it's got to be close. The idea of slavery is such a base impulse. It's like, "I'm going to kidnap you and then you're going to do everything I want." Like, what? And then there's the historical aspect. It had a huge effect on human history.”
“Slavery is the offspring of darkness.”
“Slavery is the parent of ignorance, and ignorance begets a whole brood of follies and vices; and every one of these is inevitably hostile to literary culture.”
Source: The impending crisis of the South: how to meet it
“Slavery is the ultimate and greatest evil. For it is based on a denial of the dignity of the human soul.”
“Slavery is theft - theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne.”
Source: Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader
“Slavery is what slavery's always been: About one person controlling another person using violence and then exploiting them economically, paying them nothing. That's what slavery's about”
“Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away.”
“Slavery is, as an example of what white America has done, a constant reminder of what white America might do.”
Source: Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism
“Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.”
Source: Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems
“Slavery may change its form or its name—its essence remains the same. Its essence may be expressed in these words: to be a slave is to he forced to work for someone else, just as to he a master is to live on someone else's work In antiquity, just as in Asia and in Africa today, as well as even in a part of America, slaves were, in all honesty, called slaves. In the Middle Ages, they took the name of serfs: nowadays they are called wage earners. The position of tins latter group has a great deal more dignity attached to it, and it is less hard than that of slaves, but they are nonetheless forced, by hunger as well as by political and social institutions, to maintain other people in complete or relative idleness, through their own exceedingly hard labor. Consequently they arc slaves. And in general, no state, ancient or modern, has ever managed or will ever manage to get along without the forced labor of the masses, either wage earners or slaves, as a principal and absolutely necessary foundation for the leisure, the liberty, and the civilization of the political class—the citizens.”
“Slavery may, perhaps, be best compared to the infantile disease of measles; a complaint which so commonly attacks the young of humanity in their infancy, and when gone through at that period leaves behind it so few fatal marks; but which when it normally attacks the fully developed adult becomes one of the most virulent and toxic of diseases, often permanently poisoning the constitution where it does not end in death.”
“Slavery naturally tends to destroy all sense of justice and equity. It puffs up the mind with pride: teaches youth a habit of looking down upon their fellow creatures with contempt, esteeming them as dogs or devils, and imagining themselves beings of superior dignity and importance, to whom all are indebted. This banishes the idea, and unqualifies the mind for the practice of common justice.”
Source: A Kentucky Protest Against Slavery: Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy, Proved by a Speech, Delivered in the Convention, Held at Danville, Kentucky
“Slavery never died, it just changed form.”
“Slavery never ended it just evolved.”
“Slavery of senses is the oldest form of slavery, and once we break this slavery, we'll conquer all inhumanity.”
Source: When Veins Ignite: Either Integration or Degradation
“Slavery of the heart, oh Love - a prisoner of will thou art - proof that love, while blissful, can oft also be Hell. Demonstrative definition thou art, that love can be strategic as well!”
Source: Loderunner
“Slavery often masquerades as freedom.”
Source: P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms
“Slavery or barbarism is the result of those who failed to catch up with widespread civilization, or sentimental utopianism, during their generation.”
“Slavery remained in the Deep South by other names - in prison programs with charges over nothing and eternal debt that threatened every African-American in the South right up through World War II. And that was after killing three-quarters of a million people, destroying cities, and creating hostility that exists to this day over the the Confederate flag and the racism it symbolizes, all brewing out of bitterness over a war that didn't have to happen.”
“Slavery remains rife, the shackles are just different. Labels and desires have replaced the cuffs and chains.”
“Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part.”
“Slavery's fundamental offense against human rights was not that it took liberty away (which can happen in many other situations), but that it excluded a certain category of people even from the possibility of fighting for freedom—a fight possible under tyranny, and even under the desperate conditions of modern terror (but not under any conditions of concentration-camp life). Slavery's crime against humanity did not begin when one people defeated and enslaved its enemies (though of course this was bad enough), but when slavery became an institution in which some men were "born" free and others slave, when it was forgotten that it was man who had deprived his fellow-men of freedom, and when the sanction for the crime was attributed to nature. Yet in the light of recent events it is possible to say that even slaves still belonged to some sort of human community; their labor was needed, used, and exploited, and this kept them within the pale of humanity. To be a slave was after all to have a distinctive character, a place in society—more than the abstract nakedness of beig human and nothing but human. Not the loss of specific rights, then, but the loss of a community willing and able to guarantee any rights whatsoever, has been the calamity which has befallen ever-increasing numbers of people. Man, it turns out, can lose all so-called Rights of Man without losing his essential quality as man, his human dignity. Only the loss of a polity itself expels him from humanity.”
Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism
“Slavery stands as an affront to human dignity.”
Source: Paris in April
“Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.”
“Slavery takes so many forms, as it is interwoven within legal industries and is embedded into the supply chain.”
“Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“Slavery to religion is most widespread across the world, including the Western. Quite simply because Arabs and Jews appear to be the geniuses of several sects.”
“Slavery tolerates no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of opinion.”
Source: The impending crisis of the South: how to meet it
“Slavery was a central concern of governance form the time of the first nation-state. The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest know set of laws for governing an empire, prescribed death for anyone who harbored a fugitive or otherwise helped a slave to escape. The relationship between the law and bondage goes back even farther: Indeed, the oldest extant legal documents don't concern the sale of land, houses, or even animals, but slaves.”
Source: The Culture of Make Believe
“Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.”
“Slavery was a web of relationships, and if people knew how thick the whole business was, they would not make fun of people like Harriet Tubman. They would understand how intelligent she was and how sharp.”
“Slavery was horrible for all miss treated. The lack of compassion for another human was obsolete. (Misogyny ) Was quite prevalent back then as well as the legal doctrine of couverture. which for the record still exists to an extent. However the laws have not been officially demolished. nearly piece by piece broken away to fit within today's society. Slavery was not of color. ( SLAVERY WAS OF ALL COLORS ) !!!!!!!!!
I am not racist, I do not believe human beings are illegal, I believe woman's rights are civil rights and yes I do believe in science. I respect you and your beliefs. I expect the same back!!!!!!
HOWEVER, I DO NOT DISRESPECT MYSELF NOR OTHERS BY SAYING THOSE DAMN GERMANS, CHINESE, ENGLISH,BLACKS, JEWS, ETC. SO I TAKE OFFENSE TO BEING DISRESPECTED. WHEN I HAVE TO HEAR THOSE WHITE PEOPLE OR DUMB AMERICANS !!!!!
I PROMISE YOU NO MATTER WHERE YOUR FAMILY CAME FROM THEY HAD IT HARD !!! VERY HARD!!! IN MOST CASES IT WAS SO PAINFUL THEY CAN'T BRING THEMSELVES TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!!
I AM SURE THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE THROWING STONE ARE COMING FROM GLASS HOUSES. LOOK INTO YOUR OWN FAMILY HISTORY AND WHERE THEY CAME FROM AND I AM SURE THEIR HAVE BLOOD ON THEY HANDS!!!!!! NOT ALWAYS BY CHOICE HOWEVER BY SELF DEFENSE !!!!!!!!!!! By Bonnie Zackson Koury”
“Slavery was immensely profitable to some masters. James Madison told a British visitor shortly after the American Revolution that he could make 257 dollars on every (black slave) in a year, and spend only 12 or 13 dollars on his keep.”
Source: A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
“Slavery was, in fact, a social system designed to destroy social capital among slaves and between slaves and freemen.”
Source: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
“Slavery was incredibly prosperous for some people, at that time. It was not a bad business plan, but it was terrible and inhumane. But as a business it worked.”
“Slavery was more or less brought to an end in America, although not as quickly or apologetically as it should have been, and even after slavery ended, the descendants of slaves have been treated very terribly by many people in places with much hatred and violence, which, like slavery, may someday come to an end, although not as quickly or apologetically as any decent person would like.”
Source: Poison for Breakfast
“Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.”
“Slavery was not born of racism; rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.”
Source: The Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and Slavery
“Slavery was not merely an unfortunate thing that happened to black people. It was an American innovation, an American institution created by and for the benefit of the elites of the dominant caste and enforced by poorer members of the dominant caste who tied their lot to the caste system rather than to their consciences.”
Source: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
“Slavery was regarded by Aristotle as an ordinance of nature, and so probably was it by the slaves themselves in olden time.”
Source: Principles of Economics
“Slavery was, in a very real sense, the first
international human rights issue to come to the fore. It led to the
adoption of the first human rights laws and to the creation of the
first human rights non-governmenta l organization. And yet despite
the efforts of the international community to combat this abhorrent
practice, it is still widely prevalent in all
its insidious forms, old and new.”
“Slavery will not be overthrown without excitement, a most tremendous excitement.”
“Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.”
Source: The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
“Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.”
Source: The Spirit of Laws
“Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.”
Source: ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY
“Slavery, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, subordination, and human rights abuse transform and adapt with the times.”
“Slavery, you know, is nothing else than the unwilling labor of many. Therefore to get rid of slavery it is necessary that people should not wish to profit by the forced labor of others and should consider it a sin and a shame. But they go and abolish the external form of slavery and arrange so that one can no longer buy and sell slaves, and they imagine and assure themselves that slavery no longer exists, and do not see or wish to see that it does, because people still want and consider it good and right to exploit the labor of others.”
“Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.”
Source: Democracy in America
“Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.”
Source: The Complete Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass
“Slaves are men who did not take care of their future because if you neglect your future, you will be a slave to someone that did.”
Source: Great Reflections on Success