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Serfdom Quotes

Browse 11 quotes about Serfdom.

Serfdom Quotes

“Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.”

ChildrenWisdomHumorKidsFunnyJobsYoungQuotesStrongWorkWealthFreedomPoorMoneyEducationPovertyKnowledgePowerEconomyRichWiseImpossibleInfluencePossibilityHumourMastersFoolAuthorityHumorousWeaknessWeakIntelligentQuoteSlaveryProfoundPhilosopherQuote Of The DayRichesFoolishInventionIgnorantEducatedEmploymentGiantsThoughtfulControlEnlightenedSatireWealthyThought ProvokingDeepInsightfulJobChildMasteryAphorismSouth AfricaQuotationsAfricaPossibilitiesEmployedDominationBondageMaximsSayingsPossibleAdagesDominionProverbsAphorismsMake You ThinkOldWorkingDominanceAxiomsServitudeAdageKnowledgeableMasterProverbSatiricalSayingDwarfsEpigramsEnslavementAfricanQuotationFoolsGnomeSatiristMaximWell EducatedEpigramGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkScholarlyKidAxiomDictumDictumsMidgetEruditeSouth AfricanControllingGiantInventSatiristsDominateImpossibilitiesInformedDwarfWell ReadEconomiesSerfdomSlave MastersCultivatedCulturedWell InformedMoniedIgnoramusInventedThrallDeep PocketsMoniesSlave MasterThralldomVassalageMidgets
Book:The Use and Misuse of Children
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“They fear that without compulsion the masses will not work. But during our own lifetime, have we not heard the same fears expressed twice? Once, by the anti-abolitionists in America before the emancipation of the Negroes, and, for a second time, by the Russian nobility before the liberation of the serfs? 'Without the whip the Negro will not work,' said the anti- abolitionist. 'Free from their master's supervision the serfs will leave the fields uncultivated,' said the Russian serf-owners. It was the refrain of the French noblemen in 1789, the refrain of the Middle Ages, a refrain as old as the world, and we shall hear it every time there is a question of sweeping away an injustice. And each time actual facts give it the lie. The liberated peasant of 1792 ploughed with an eager energy, unknown to his ancestor so, the emancipated Negro works more than his fathers; and the Russian peasant, after having honoured the honeymoon of his emancipation by celebrating Fridays as well as Sundays, has taken up work with an eagerness proportionate to the completeness of his liberation. There, where the soil is his, he works desperately; that is the exact word for it. The anti-abolitionist refrain can be of value to slave-owners; as to the slaves them- selves, they know what it is worth, as they know its motive.”

WorkSlaveryCommunismEmancipationWage LaborSerfdom
Book:The Conquest of Bread
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“Men’s economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom. It follows that woman knows and chooses herself not as she exists for herself but as man defines her. She thus has to be described first as men dream of her since her being-for-men is one of the essential factors of her concrete condition.”

MenWomenRelationshipsMarriagePrivilegeInferiorityPrestigeSerfdomMen Dream
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.”

HumorFunnyQuotesOpportunityFreedomPowerInfluenceHumourMastersAuthorityHumorousQuoteSlaverySlaveProfoundPhilosopherQuote Of The DayThoughtfulControlSatireOpportunitiesThought ProvokingDeepInsightfulMasteryAphorismSouth AfricaQuotationsAfricaDominationBondageMaximsSayingsAdagesDominionProverbsAphorismsMake You ThinkHesitationDominanceAxiomsServitudeAdageMasterProverbSatiricalSayingEpigramsEnslavementAfricanQuotationGnomeSlavesSatiristMaximEpigramGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkAxiomDictumDictumsSouth AfricanSatiristsDominateSerfdomSlave MastersHesitateThrallReadilySlave MasterThralldomVassalage
Book:The Use and Misuse of Children
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“«Представьте себе, вот вы сидите в Кремле, — говорил он [Путин] Ангеле Меркель. — И у вас есть избиратели, которые живут в Калининграде, а есть те, кто живут в Петропавловске-Камчатском. И вам на всю эту территорию, разную по языкам, взглядам, быту, как-то надо объединить. Надо нечто такое этим людям сказать, чтобы их склеило. Одна ваша соотечественница, великая соотечественница, была нашей императрицей. Екатериной II. Она поначалу хотела быстро отменить крепостное право. Но потом изучила, как устроена Россия, и знаете, что она сделала? Она усилила права дворянства и уничтожила права крестьянства. У нас нельзя иначе: шаг вправо, шаг влево — и все, ты теряешь власть».”

HistoryPowerRussiaPutinSerfdom
Book:Вся кремлевская рать: Краткая история современной России
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“It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions... The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.”

GovernmentReligionSlaveryMonarchyAristocracySerfdom
Author:Mark Twain
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“While people will submit to suffering which may hit anyone, they will not so easily submit to suffering which is the result of the decision of authority. It may be bad to be just a cog in an impersonal machine; but it is infinitely worse if we can no longer leave it, if we are tied to our place and to the superiors who have been chosen for us. Dissatisfaction of everybody with his lot will inevitably grow with the consciousness that it is the result of deliberate human decision. Once government has embarked upon planning for the sake of justice, it cannot refuse responsibility for anybody’s fate or position. In a planned society we shall all know that we are better or worse off than others, not because of circumstances which nobody controls, and which it is impossible to foresee with certainty, but because some authority wills it. And all our efforts directed toward improving our position will have to aim, not at foreseeing and preparing as well as we can for the circumstances over which we have no control, but at influencing in our favor the authority which has all the power. The nightmare of English nineteenth-century political thinkers, the state in which “no avenue to wealth and honor would exist save through the government,” would be realized in a completeness which they never imagined — though familiar enough in some countries which have since passed to totalitarianism. As soon as the state takes upon itself the task of planning the whole economic life, the problem of the due station of the different individuals and groups must indeed inevitably become the central political problem. As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power. There will be no economic or social questions that would not be political questions in the sense that their solution will depend exclusively on who wields the coercive power, on whose are the views that will prevail on all occasions.”

PoliticsEconomicsLiberalismAuthoritarianismSerfdomPlanned SocietyAuthoritarian States
Book:The Road to Serfdom
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“While the Growing went on, this god of their market-place was their true god, their familiar and spirit-control. They did not know that they were his helplessly obedient slaves, nor could they ever hope to realize their serfdom (as the first step to becoming free men) until they should make the strange and hard discovery that matter should serve man’s spirit. (p.211)”

CapitalismEconomicsAmerican HistoryAmerican CultureAmerican SpiritSerfdomCog In The MachineAmericanness
Book:The Magnificent Ambersons
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“In this martial world dominated by men, women had little place. The Church's teachings might underpin feudal morality, yet when it came to the practicalities of life, a ruthless pragmatism often came into play. Kings and noblemen married for political advantage, and women rarely had any say in how they or their wealth were to be disposed in marriage. Kings would sell off heiresses and rich widows to the highest bidder, for political or territorial advantage, and those who resisted were heavily fined. Young girls of good birth were strictly reared, often in convents, and married off at fourteen or even earlier to suit their parents' or overlord's purposes. The betrothal of infants was not uncommon, despite the church's disapproval. It was a father's duty to bestow his daughters in marriage; if he was dead, his overlord or the King himself would act for him. Personal choice was rarely and issue. Upon marriage, a girl's property and rights became invested in her husband, to whom she owed absolute obedience. Every husband had the right to enforce this duty in whichever way he thought fit--as Eleanor was to find out to her cost. Wife-beating was common, although the Church did at this time attempt to restrict the length of the rod that a husband might use.”

LifePoliticsMarriageHistoryFeminismAbuseSlaveryOppressionRoyaltyMedievalSerfdomEleanor Of AquitaineMedieval History
Book:Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life
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