Home / Topics / Slavery Quotes

Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Slavery Quotes

“No nation ever yet found any inconvenience from too close an inspection into the conduct of its officers, but many have been brought to ruin and reduced to slavery by suffering gradual impositions and abuses.”

Has Beens Suffering Found Nations Abuse Slavery Ruins Officers Inconvenience Imposition Inspection

Book:A System of Penal Law for the State of Louisiana

Source: A System of Penal Law for the State of Louisiana

“Plato defined a slave as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. This condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense. It is found wherever men are engaged in activity which is socially serviceable, but whose service they do not understand and have no personal interest in.”

Men Purpose Found Interest Accepting Conditions Activity Slavery Slave Defined Engaged Plato Personal Interest

Book:Democracy And Education

Source: Democracy And Education

“Rigorously investigated and fearlessly reported, A Crime So Monstrous is a passionate and thorough examination of the appalling reality of human bondage in today's world. In his devastating narrative, Ben Skinner boldly casts light on the unthinkable, yet thriving, modern-day practice of slavery, exposing a global trade in human lives. The abuses detailed in these pages are repugnant, but there is hope to be found: by giving voice to the victims, Skinner helps restore their dignity and makes crucial strides toward closing this shameful chapter in history.”

“There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this war shall be made a war for the negro. I am willing that it shall be. It is awar to found an empire on the negro in slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it a war to establish the negro in freedom--against whom the whole nation, North and South, East and West, in one mighty conspiracy, has combined from the beginning.”

Ifs Made War Whole Found Nations Sides Willing Shame Slavery West South East Empires Conspiracy East And West North And South

Author:Susan B. Anthony

“The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own. I have found the anti-slavery cause to be ... the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood and taught than in any other.”

Humans School Found Causes Understanding My Own Rights Taught Understood Slavery Slave Human Rights Civil Rights Investigation Anti Slavery

Author:Angelina Grimke

“The greatest number of drug addicts are to be found in Teheran and in Karachi, not in the West. Not in New York believe it or not. It's the same with the roles of slavery, racism and imperialism in the world. These institutions were present in other cultures. However, it was Western civilization which did something about slavery, about racism and voluntarily dissolved its empires leaving behind a very positive legacy of institutions not to mention buildings and roadways.”

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.”

Thinking Men Feels Made Reason Able Desire Found Moral Vision Plans Conditions Gains Slavery Slave Contentment Be A Man Inconsistency

Book:Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.”

Way Firsts Found Father Left Nations Half Institutions Slavery Slave Our Father Be A Slave

Book:CIVIL WAR – Complete History of the War, Documents, Memoirs & Biographies of the Lead Commanders: Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant & William T. Sherman, Biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis & Robert E. Lee, The Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Presidential Orders & Actions

Source: CIVIL WAR – Complete History of the War, Documents, Memoirs & Biographies of the Lead Commanders: Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant & William T. Sherman, Biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis & Robert E. Lee, The Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Presidential Orders & Actions

“I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight.”

Culture Found Felt Leader Depends Slavery Spots Oppressed Handicaps Charismatic Limelight

Author:Ella Baker

“Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.”

Hands Purpose Reading Found Existence Principles Constitution Slavery Hostile Presentation Clauses Pro Slavery

Author:Frederick Douglass

“A life that stood out as a gospel of self-forgetting service. He could have added fortune to fame but caring for neither he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world. The centre of his world was the south where he was born in slavery some 79 years ago and where he did his work as a creative scientist.”

World Years Self Science Found Born Forget Creative Birth Honor Fame Research Years Ago Scientist Slavery Fortune South Caring Helpful Centre Found Happiness

Author:George Washington Carver

“Not in government or force, not in slavery or war, but in the creative, and thereby spiritual, power of freedom, shall our inspiration be found.”

War Inspiration Government Spiritual Found Force Liberty Creative Slavery Libertarian Libertarianism Spiritual Power

Author:F. A. Harper

“We have faith that future generations will know here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war.”

Knows Men Way War Fighting Found Force Generations Middle Century Produce Ignorance Slavery Have Faith Intolerance Twentieth Century Future Generation Good Will

Author:Franklin D. Roosevelt

“How hard a thing is life to the lowly and yet how human and real is it? And all this life and love and strife and failure, - is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? The answer lies in each of us. For somewhere in your past ... somewhere some 100 years ago?there rose from the smoldering ashes of slavery?a proud and humble family who suffered and struggled with life. A family who found the strength to endure all the indignities of life in America, and that family had the hope for a taste of her bounties in the future.”

“We are ending where the savages began. We have found again the lost arts of starving non-combatants, burning hovels, and leading away the vanquished into slavery. Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: we are our own Huns.”

Art Would Be Found Lost Slavery Burning Savages Starving Invasion Barbarians Superfluous Lost Art

Book:On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth

Source: On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth

“I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.”

Knows Wanted Found Slavery Slave Be A Slave

Author:Frederick Douglass

“The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.”

Reality Found United Common Conditions Genius Social Justice Slavery Slave Rebellion Obscure Oppressors Dynamics Uprising

Author:Andrea Dworkin

“And I take this opportunity to declare, that... I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, - the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book.”

“Our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper love within us which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear - love for him that has shown us such grace that no greater can be found.”

Children Might Suffering Order Found Christ Sin Liberty Greater Grace All Things Slavery Deeper Redemption Child Of God Fear Of Love Deeper Love

Author:Peter Abelard