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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed the deck of that ship because I knew her dear feet had trod it. She was never engaged to me. She treated me as fairly as ever a woman treated a man. I have no complaint to make. It was all love on my side, and all good comradeship and friendship on hers. When we parted she was a free woman, but I could never again be a free man.”

LoveFreedomSadnessSlaveryObsessionLove At First SightSherlock HolmesHomes
Book:The Return of Sherlock Holmes
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“It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!" ... "Now, John, I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.”

ReligionHumanityPoliticsFreedomCompassionEmpathyRacismSlaveryEqualityAfrican American
Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
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“The implications of the true story are existential and corrosive to our larger national myth. To understand that the most costly war in this country's history was launched in direct opposition to everything the country claims to be, to understand that this war was the product of centuries of enslavement, which is to see an even longer, more total war, is to alter the accepted conception of America as a beacon of freedom. How does one face this truth or forge a national identity out of it?”

WarFreedomRaceRacismSlaveryMythologyCivil WarRace Relations
Book:We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
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“We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.”

BelieveHumorFunnyHappinessSpiritualJoySpiritualityWealthFreedomMoneyRichHumourWorshipGloryJokesHumorousSlaveryPrisonSlaveRichesHappyLiberationSatireMaterialismWealthyJailPrisonerIdolsAphorismConsumerismFreeJokeHilariousJoyousAphorismsIdolatryExaggerationGlorifyContentSlavesAphoristAphoristsShackMaterialPrisonersLiberateJailerPrisonsIdolPrison CellsConfineExaggerateConfinesJailsInflatedInflatePrison CellJailersJailedShacks
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“The Matrix can feel like a pretty hopeless place. I get that. Nobody in his or her right mind (a tiny minority, admittedly) wants to be caught in an endless digital labyrinth like a techno lab rat. My position is that, on at least a subliminal level, even many of the most benighted sheeple (the really stubborn ones I think of as the ‘consciously clueless’) secretly suspect that they’re corralled in a system designed to control them, to keep them in check. But I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be this way. We have the power to change our circumstances individually and maybe, just maybe, collectively.”

FreedomEmpowermentSlaveryMental HealthDigital AgeSimulationMatrixSheepleSimulation TheoryLoosh
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”

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Author:Muhammad Ali
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“Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you're not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you're forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others.”

FreedomSlaverySlaveServantIsolationSelf Sufficiency
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“Your answer is the logical, coherent answer an absolutely normal person would give: It's a tie! A lunatic, however, would say that what I have around my neck is a ridiculous, useless bit of colored cloth tied in a very complicated way, which makes it harder to get air into your lungs and difficult to turn your neck. I have to be careful when I'm anywhere near a fan, or I could be strangled by this bit of cloth. If a lunatic were to ask me what this tie is for, I would have to say, absolutely nothing. It's not even purely decorative, since nowadays it's become a symbol of slavery, power, aloofness. The only really useful function a tie serves is the sense of relief when you get home and take it off; you feel as if you've freed yourself from something, though quite what you don't know.”

FreedomSlaveryTie
Book:Veronika Decides to Die
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“But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it... The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the Freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom.”

FreedomSlaveryNative AmericanAmerican
Book:The Underground Railroad
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“An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground and starts back impetuously at the sight of the bridle; while one which is properly trained suffers patiently even whip and spur: so savage man will not bend his neck to the yoke to which civilised man submits without a murmur, but prefers the most turbulent state of liberty to the most peaceful slavery. We cannot therefore, from the servility of nations already enslaved, judge of the natural disposition of mankind for or against slavery; we should go by the prodigious efforts of every free people to save itself from oppression. I know that the former are for ever holding forth in praise of the tranquillity they enjoy in their chains, and that they call a state of wretched servitude a state of peace: miserrimam servitutem pacem appellant. But when I observe the latter sacrificing pleasure, peace, wealth, power and life itself to the preservation of that one treasure, which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see free-born animals dash their brains out against the bars of their cage, from an innate impatience of captivity; when I behold numbers of naked savages, that despise European pleasures, braving hunger, fire, the sword and death, to preserve nothing but their independence, I feel that it is not for slaves to argue about liberty.”

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Author:Rousseau Jean-Jacques
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“Paul D did not answer because she didn't expect or want him to, but he did know what she meant. Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon - everything belonged to the men who had the guns. Little men, some of them, big men too, each one of whom he could snap like a twig if he wanted to. Men who knew that their manhood lay in their guns and were not even embarrassed by the knowledge that without fox would laugh at them. And these "men" who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them, stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight. So you protected yourself and loved small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own; lay down with head twisted in order to see the loved one over the rim of the trench before you slept. Stole shy glances at her between the trees at chain-up. Glass blades, salamanders, spiders, woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants. Anything bigger wouldn't do. A woman, a child, a brother - a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose - not to need permission for desire - well now, THAT was freedom.”

LoveFreedomSlavery
Book:Beloved
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“But who would build the roads if there were no government? You mean to tell me that 300 million people in this country and 7 billion people on the planet would just sit around in their houses and think “Gee, I’d like to go visit Fred, but I can't because there isn’t a flat thing outside for me to drive on, and I don’t know how to build it and the other 300 million or 7 billion people can’t possibly do it because there aren’t any politicians and tax collectors. If they were here then we could do it. If they were here to boss us around and steal our money and really inefficiently build the flat places, then we would be set. Then I would be comfortable and confident that I could get places. But I can’t go to Fred’s house or the market because we can’t possibly build a flat space from A to B. We can make these really small devices that enable us to contact people from all over the word that fits in our pockets; we can make machines that we drive around in, but no, we can’t possibly build a flat space.”

GovernmentFreedomLibertyTechnologySlaveryLibertarianSocialismAnarchyBureaucracyTaxationTheftUtopiaCoercionStatismVoluntaryismLaissez FaireRoadsAustrian School Of Economics
Author:Larken Rose
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“White ain't nothing.' Mama's grip did not lessen. 'It is something, Cassie. White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this Earth is something, and nobody, no matter what color is better than anybody else.' 'Then how come Mr. Simms don't know that.' 'Because he's one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big.' I stared questionably at Mama, not really understanding. Mama squeezed my hadn't and explained further, 'You see, Cassie, many years ago, when our people were fist brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country--' 'Like Big Ma's Papa and Mama?' Mama nodded. "Yes, baby. Like Papa Luke and Mama Rachael. Except they were born right here is Mississippi, but their grandparents were born in Africa. And when they came, there was some white people who thought that is was wrong for any people to be slaves. So the people who needed slaves to work in their fields and the people who were making money bringing slaves from Africa preached that black people weren't really people like white people were, so slavery was all right. They also said that slavery was good for us because it thought us to be good Christians, like the white people.' She sighed deeply, her voice fading into a distant whisper, 'But they didn't teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience. They were afraid of slave revolts and they wanted us to learn the Bible's teachings about slaves being loyal to their masters. But even teaching Christianity didn't make us stop wanting to be free and many slaves ran away.”

FreedomRaceChristianitySlaveryEqualityOppressionInequalityAfrican AmericansMississippiSlavesCivil Liberty
Author:Mildred D. Taylor
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“Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but 'created equal' was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if 'all men' did not truly mean all men.”

FreedomSlaveryEqualityUnited States Of AmericaDeclaration Of Independence
Book:The Underground Railroad
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“It might seem to you that living in the woods on a riverbank would remove you from the modern world. But not if the river is navigable, as ours is. On pretty weekends in the summer, this riverbank is the very verge of the modern world. It is a seat in the front row, you might say. On those weekends, the river is disquieted from morning to night by people resting from their work. This resting involves traveling at great speed, first on the road and then on the river. The people are in an emergency to relax. They long for the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. Their eyes are hungry for the scenes of nature. They go very fast in their boats. They stir the river like a spoon in a cup of coffee. They play their radios loud enough to hear above the noise of their motors. They look neither left nor right. They don't slow down for - or maybe even see - an old man in a rowboat raising his lines... I watch and I wonder and I think. I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom.”

FreedomEconomySlaveryIronyModernityRestRestlessness
Book:Jayber Crow
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“К Алисе подошел Джимми. - Привет, - сказал он. - Ты чего с мучительства сбежала? Струсила? Тебя на подвиги не возьмут, учти. - Глупый, - вздохнула Алиса. - Ну кого это на подвиги берут? На подвиги люди сами ходят, и без разрешения.”

FreedomSlaveryDeedsFree WillRussian
Book:Вампир Полумракс. Звездный пес
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“And when now, after finishing his work in the shed, the coachman went across the courtyard in his slow, rolling walk, closed the huge gate and then returned, all very slowly, while he literally looked at nothing but his own footprints in the snow—and finally shut himself into the shed; and now as all the electric lights went out too—for whom should they remain on?—and only up above the slit in the wooden gallery still remained bright, holding one’s wandering gaze for a little, it seemed to K. as if at last those people had broken off all relations with him, and as if now in reality he were freer than he had ever been, and at liberty to wait here in this place usually forbidden to him as long as he desired, and had won a freedom such as hardly anybody else had ever succeeded in winning, and as if nobody could dare to touch him or drive him away, or even speak to him; but—this conviction was at least equally strong—as if at the same time there was nothing more senseless, nothing more hopeless, than this freedom, this waiting, this inviolability.”

FreedomSolitudeSlavery
Book:The castle
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“We Are Freedom Fighters (Sonnet 2260) Right to leave religion is just as fundamental as right to religion. Freedom of dress is just as important as freedom of the press. Freedom to breastfeed without shame is just as sacred as freedom to pray. Freedom to choose not to have child is just as respectable as motherhood. Freedom to love outside tradition is just as divine as jesus on the mount. Freedom to dream across color and collar is just as elemental as drinking water. Any halfwit can write Declaration of Independence, while denying people's rights behind closed doors. My Declaration of World Independence is this, rights of another only enhance my own.”

FreedomSlaveryFeministCivil RightsAbortionLgbtqFundamentalismSecularismIndependence DayInclusive
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
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“Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them. It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children – children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm. I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.”

FreedomConscienceSlaveryStealingAfrican AmericansBlacksRight And WrongSlaves
Book:The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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“So I would invent her thoughts, plumb them for a subtext that was historically true in essence, but not strictly factual in order to relate her history to contemporary issues about freedom responsibility, and woman's "place." The heroine would represent the unapologetic acceptance of shame and terror; assume the consequences of choosing infanticide; claim her own freedom. The terrain, slavery, was formidable and pathless.”

FreedomFeminismCreationSlaveryContemporary
Book:Beloved
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