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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning.”

ShouldMeanMadeSometimesFeltTermInterestHeardGroupsBloodBrotherSlaveryStrangerCuriousMy BrotherGrandmotherMy SisterBrothers And SistersTrue Meaning
Book:My Bondage and My Freedom ...
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“They wanted black women to conform to the gender norms set by white society. They wanted to be recognized as 'men,' as patriarchs, by other men, including white men. Yet they could not assume this position if black women were not willing to conform to prevailing sexist gender norms. Many black women who has endured white-supremacist patriarchal domination during slavery did not want to be dominated by black men after manumission.”

IfsMenWantWantedBlackWhitePositionWillingSlaveryAssumingIncludingGenderConformWhite ManNormBlack WomenDominationPrevailingSexist
Author:Bell Hooks
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“You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world.”

WorldLooksHas BeensStillsWarFeelingsChristianLawReligionBitsChurchRaceMoralStepsEnemyPrinciplesProgressSlaveryCriminalsImprovementAround The WorldOrganizedTreatmentConsistentlyHumaneEvery StepAnti ReligiousMorality And ReligionCriminal LawReligious WarsReligion WarReligion And WarReligious DogmaRace And Religion
Book:The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959
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“Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.”

MenWarStatesGovernmentPoliticalInterestInfluenceSpecialIntegrityMethodSlaveryProfitCivil WarThreatenedCottonSpecial InterestsSinister
Book:The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt: Condensed from the Original Ed., Supplemented by Letters, Speeches, and Other Writings, and Edited with an Introd. by Wayne Andrews
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“Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Civilization, man feels once more happy.”

MenFeelsHumansMomentsCareNatureEffortJourneyLandHabitCivilizationTravelWeightSlaveryWanderAround The WorldHuman LifeRoutineTime TravelTraveledShakingDepartureCloaksGreat TravelInspiring TravelTravel AdventureAdventure And TravelFettersInspirational AdventureAdventure And LifeTravel Journey
Author:Richard Francis Burton
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“We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.”

HumansImportantUseAnimalCommonResourcesTreatsInstitutionsSlaveryJustifyJustifiedHuman ResourcesSentient BeingsFrancione
Author:Gary L. Francione
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“When everything is subject to money, then the scarcity of money makes everything scarce, including the basis of human life and happiness. Such is the life of the slave—one whose actions are compelled by threat to survival. Perhaps the deepest indication of our slavery is the monetization of time.”

HumansActionSubjectsSurvivalBasesSlaveryThreatSlaveIncludingHuman LifeCompelledIndicationScarceScarcityLife And Happiness
Book:Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition
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“Holocausts do not amaze me. Rapes and child slavery do not amaze me. And Franklin, I know you feel otherwise, but Kevin does not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience. Lost wallets posted to their owners, strangers who furnish meticulous directions, neighbors who water each other's houseplants - these things amaze me.”

KnowsFeelsChildrenDoeTwoRunningFacesGirlLostWaterMy OwnStreetsReturnSlaveryStrangerWideNeighborBlockTeenagerMaskOwnersHolocaustFlashAmazedGlovesFranklinKevinWalletsMeticulousCheckoutsExpedience
Book:We Need To Talk About Kevin
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“It is a sad hardship and slavery to people who live in towns, that in their movements they know of one dimension only; they walk along the line as if they were led on a string. The transition from the line to the plane into the two dimensions, when you wander across a field or through a wood, is a splendid liberation to the slaves, like the French Revolution. But in the air you are taken into the full freedom of the three dimensions; after long ages of exile and dreams the homesick heart throws itself into the arms of space.”

PeopleIfsKnowsHeartLongTwoDreamAgeThreeLinesSpaceWalksTakenAirMovementFieldsRevolutionArmsTownsSlaverySlaveWoodsWanderLiberationPlanesDimensionsStringsHardshipTransitionExileSplendidFrench RevolutionHomesickThree Dimensions
Book:Out of Africa
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“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment; it only increased my desire to be free, and set me thinking of plans to gain my freedom.”

ThinkingInspirationalDesirePlansConditionsGainsSlaveryContentmentBlack HistoryBlack History MonthBlack History Month InspirationalBlack History Inspirational
Book:Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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“Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves they will seek it, cherish it, and view any deprivation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.”

IfsStillsPassionLeftCommunityNaturalViewsDemocracyRegretTasteSlaveryDemocraticEqualityCherishInvincibleDeprivationArdentInsatiableIncessant
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
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“I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.”

MenBelieveHumansHas BeensWould BeAmericaJoyI BelieveBlackFreedomDarknessImpossibleSlaveryPrisonAppreciationIgnorantAnguishMudSweetestHuman Society
Author:Malcolm X
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“For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.”

PeopleKnowsMenNeedsMayStoriesHandsAgeLawGivenEnjoyFreedomLibertyTeachFitSkillsSeasonsSlaveryEdgesMeritRemoveGood ManRomeVirtuousUnjustMischiefGrievanceDegeneratesCurb
Book:The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction
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“History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery.”

HumansLongPoliticalEvilPeaceFreedomHistoryEconomicPerspectiveJudgmentDiedSlaveryFeministOppressionFighterRangeTyrantsHuman FreedomSufferersVindicationPolitical OppressionEconomic Slavery
Book:Labor's Own William Z. Foster: A Communist's Fifty Years of Working-class Leadership and Struggle
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“There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one - the pulpit. It yielded last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession - at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery texts in the Bible remained; the practice changed; that was all.”

DoeEndsLastsReligionFightingStrongPracticeLandChangedSlaverySlavePityTailsStubbornSeekersPulpitProcession
Book:What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings
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