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Serfs Quotes

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Serfs Quotes

“The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. More than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,—about another world, nothing. Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have, has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot. Our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They abhorred liberty.”

ReasonHateLibertyKnowledgeLogicTheologyThoughtIgnorantTortureCreedsDogmaBrutalSlavesSerfsTheologiansFagot
Book:The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
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“the society which projects and undertakes the technological transformation of nature alters the base of domination by gradually replacing personal dependence (of the slave on the master, the serf on the lord of the manor, the lord on the donor of the fief, etc.) with dependence on the "objective order of things" (on economic laws, the market etc.).”

LawOrderLordEconomicMastersProjectsTransformationSlaveObjectivesEtcTechnologicalDependenceDominationDonorsSerfs
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“It is Mind which determines the change of Society, and it was because the mind at work was a Catholic mind that the slave became a serf and was on his way to becoming a peasant and a fully free man-a man free economically as well as politically. The whole spirit of the Church was for small property, and that spirit was slowly, instinctively, working for the establishment of small property throughout Christendom.”

MenWayMindWellsWholeSpiritPoliticsChurchEconomyBecomingCatholicPropertySlaveDetermineLiberalismEstablishmentPeasantsFree ManChristendomSerfs
Book:The Crisis Of Civilization
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“We preach free enterprise capitalism. We believe in it, we give our lives in war for it, but the closest most of us come to profiting from it are a few miserable shares of stock in a company that doesn't pay large enough dividends to keep a small mouse in cheese. The truth is, most of us are job serfs. At a time when invested capital returns 20 to 30 percent, we have no capital. We only have our wages and salaries, and a debt so high that something like 20c on every dollar we earn is spent to pay off what we owe.”

GivingBelieveWarEnoughWisdomJobsPoliticsPayCompanyEconomyOur LivesShareReturnTruth IsPercentCapitalismDollarsDebtMiserableLiberalismEnterpriseClosestCheeseMiceWagesSalaryDividendsFree EnterpriseSerfs
Book:Left at the post
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“The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom the eldest son of the serf was held as the son of the Lord.... Marquette was claimed by the Lord's Spiritual, as well as by the Lord's Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim.”

WellsSpiritualLawThreeChurchKnownLordAtheismSonMarriedClaimsPositive AtheismCustomsCompelledPreyServitudeMarried WomenEldestDishonorableSerfsEldest Son
Author:Matilda Joslyn Gage
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“To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people's consciousness, the people's conscience, freedom andso forth while servants in tails are scurrying around your table, just like serfs, and out in the severe cold on the street await coachmen--this is the same as lying to the holy spirit.”

PeopleSpiritLyingConsciousnessStreetsColdDrinkHolySpeechConscienceRaisesTablesSlaveryServantHoly SpiritHypocrisyTailsSevereChampagneRacketDineSerfs
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“Admit that the press transferred the pontificate of Rome to Henry VIII-Admit that the press demolished in some sort the feudal system, and set the serfs and villains free; admit that the press demolished the monasteries, nunneries, and religious houses; into whose hands did all these alienated baronies, monasteries, and religious houses and lands fall? Into the hands of the democracy? Into the hands of serfs and villains? Serfs and villains were the only real democracy in those time. No. They fell into the hands of other aristocrats. . . .”

RealHandsTimeFallHouseReligiousDemocracyLandPressesRomeVillainMonasteriesSerfsHenry ViiiHenry VFeudal System
Author:John Adams
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“If we remain fearful, then we will be further stripped of power as we barrel towards this neofeudalistic state where there is a world of masters and serfs, a kind of permanent underclass. That's what's happening; that's what's being created. Rapacious corporate business interests have shattered all kinds of regulations and controls. They have carried out a coup d'etat in slow motion. And it's over; they've won.”

IfsWorldKindStatesInterestMastersHappeningsAll KindsCorporatePermanentFearfulRegulationShatteredBarrelsCoupsSlow MotionSerfs
Author:Chris Hedges
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“Feudalism is an economic system where a few people own all the land and the others have no option but to be serfs on such a feudal estate. We now condemn feudalism. We condemn not merely the feudal lords but we condemn the whole structure of rules that sustained feudalism. I am asking people to think similarly about the world economy.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWholeLordEconomyEconomicLandAskingStructureEstatesEconomic SystemsWorld EconomyFeudalismSerfs
Author:Thomas Pogge
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“Now from his breast into the eyes the ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer spent in rough water where his ship went down under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea. Few men can keep alive through a big serf to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind: and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband, her white arms round him pressed as though forever.”

MenBigsEyeEarthLastsJoyWaterWhiteBehindsForeverKnowingClearAliveWifeSeaWindArmsHusbandLongingRoundsDearBlowShipsBeachFaithfulBreastsRoughAbyssAcheGaleSwimmerPoseidonSerfs
Book:The odyssey
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“To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.”

KnowsHeartSelfBodyRunningDiesFatherWishRealizingGrowingAtheismTerribleLessonsProtectDaughterCalmAtheistLimitationPhrasesFrightenedFatherhoodEvokeBeing A DadSerfsYeatsThoughts Of Death
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“If on Judgement Day I were summoned by St. Peter to give testimony to the used-to-be sheriff's act of kindness, I would be unable to say anything in his behalf. His confidence that my uncle and every other Black man who heard of the Klan's coming ride would scurry under their houses to hide in chicken droppings was too humiliating to hear. Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.”

IfsMenGivingShouldWould BeLawUsedHouseWaitingBlackKindnessHeardLandUsed To BeThanksSavingGentleJudgementChickensPeterYardsUnclesSay AnythingTestimonyBehalfDroppingDeservingHumiliatingActs Of KindnessMommaSheriffsSerfsJudgement DaySt PeterSquires
Author:Maya Angelou
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“The notion that "applied" knowledge is somehow less worthy than "pure" knowledge, was natural to a society in which all useful work was performed by slaves and serfs, and in which industry was controlled by the models set by custom rather than by intelligence. Science, or the highest knowing, was then identified with pure theorizing, apart from all application in the uses of life; and knowledge relating to useful arts suffered the stigma attaching to the classes who engaged in them.”

ArtUseNaturalClassKnowledgeKnowingIndustryPureHighestModelsSlaveNotionWorthyEngagedCustomsControlledApplicationStigmaSerfs
Book:The Middle Works, 1899-1924
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“Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identify and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views.”

IfsKnowsSelfPhilosophyGovernmentPoetryIndividualStrongLosesViewsPartyNumbersMankindPoetMajoritySlaveRhythmDamageVotingOwnersDevicesSchemesUniquenessBrushesVaryMistrustMetricsStrong PersonSerfsPersonal Views
Book:Some speculations on literature, history, and religion
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“The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf - a philosopher or servant, - but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.”

MenWorldBelieveMayHas BeensRealReasonWisdomTruthValuesLosesAliveHe ManKingsFameGainsRegardIndependentPhilosopherServantRejectsStationsBelieve In MeUtteranceSearchersSerfs
Book:Superstition and Other Essays
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“According to the Tax Foundation, taxes now consume more than 38% of the average family's budget. That is more than is spent on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined. Compare this to the plight of medieval serfs. They only had to give the lord of the manor one-third of their output - and they were considered slaves. So what does that make us?”

GivingDoeLibertyLordTaxesEconomicsThirdsFoundationSlaveAverageLibertarianCompareBudgetsClothingsLibertarianismHousingMedievalTransportationOutputPlightSerfs
Author:Daniel J. Mitchell
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“Return to Shaoshan I regret the passing, the dying, of the vague dream: my native orchards thirty-two years ago. Yet red banners roused the serfs, who seized three-pronged lances when the warlords raised whips in their black hands. We were brave and sacrifice was easy and we asked the sun, the moon, to alter the sky. Now I see a thousand waves of beans and rice and am happy. In the evening haze heroes are coming home.”

YearsTwoHomeDreamHandsThreeEasyBlackSunSacrificeSkyDyingRegretReturnHeroThousandMoonRedYears AgoBraveRaisedWavePassingPassingsEveningThirtyNativeTwo YearsComing HomeVagueRiceBeansWhipsI RegretBannerOrchardHazeTwo Years AgoSerfsWarlords
Author:Mao Zedong
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“It was the Faith which gradually and indirectly transformed the slave into the serf, and the serf into the free peasant... You will not be able to set up in a pagan or an heretical or a wholly indifferent society the institutions characteristic of economic freedom; you will not be able to curb competition which alone would be sufficient to destroy such freedom, nor pursue permanently and consecutively any one part of the program. The thing must be done as a whole, and it can be done as a whole only by the ambient influence of Catholicism.”

DoneWholeWould BeAbleInfluenceEconomicProgramInstitutionsCompetitionSlavePursueSufficientCharacteristicsCatholicismTransformedIndifferentPeasantsPaganCurbEconomic FreedomSerfsAmbient
Author:Hilaire Belloc
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“Even men who were engaged in organizing debt-serf cultivation and debt-serf industrialism in the American cotton districts, in the old rubber plantations, and in the factories of India, China, and South Italy, appeared as generous supporters of and subscribers to the sacred cause of individual liberty.”

MenPoliticalPoliticsIndividualCausesLibertyIndiaSacredSouthChinaDebtGenerousEngagedFactoriesSupporterCottonCultivationRubberIndividual LibertyPlantationsSerfs
Book:Shape Things Come
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“According to the Tax Foundation, the average American worker works 127 days of the year just to pay his taxes. That means that government owns 36 percent of the average American's output-which is more than feudal serfs owed the robber barons. That 36 percent is more than the average American spends on food, clothing and housing. In other words, if it were not for taxes, the average American's living standard would at least double.”

IfsYearsMeanGovernmentPayTaxesStandardsPercentFoundationWorkersAverageClothingsHousingRobbersOutputDays Of The YearAmerican WorkersSerfsRobber Baron
Author:Paul Craig Roberts
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