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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Slavery Quotes

“When every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning a man to machine-like labor amounts to the same thing as slavery. If a factory-worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent that the man be satisfied.... His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object in itself, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands, and is used (exploited) by this other.”

Ifs Men Hands Used Hours Taken Cutting Objects He Man Amount Becoming Labor Machines Slavery Workers Satisfied Factories Twelve Tire Condemning Factory Workers

Author:Max Stirner

“Es binden Sklavenfesseln nur die H a« nde, Der Sinn, er macht den Freien und den Knecht. The chains of slavery can only bind the hands. The mind makes us either free or enslaved.”

Mind Hands Dies Slavery Chains Dens

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“Organized religion, being founded on superstition, is, perforce, not scientific. And all that which is not scientific - that is, truthful - must be bolstered up by force, fear and falsehood. Thus we always find slavery and organized religion going hand in hand.”

Hands Force Atheism Slavery Positive Atheism Organized Truthful Superstitions Falsehood Hand In Hand Organized Religion

Book:Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...

Source: Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...

“Freedom was given to humanity by God. But, governments, if they can help it, never give freedom. They just hand out slavery with slogans.”

Ifs Giving Helping Hands Government Humanity Given Slavery Slogans

Author:Taylor Caldwell

“... even I am growing accustomed to slavery; so much so that I cease to think of its accursed influence and calmly eat from the hands of the bondman without being mindful that he is such. O, Slavery, hateful thing that thou art thus to blunt the keen edge of conscience!”

Thinking Art Hands Growing Influence Conscience Slavery Edges Cease Accustomed Hateful Blunt

Author:Susan B. Anthony

“One of the duties which devolve upon women in the present interesting crisis, is to prepare themselves for more extensive usefulness, by making use of those religious and literary privileges and advantages that are within their reach, if they will only stretch out their hands and possess them.”

Ifs Use Hands Religious Interesting Duty Advantage Crisis Slavery Privilege Usefulness

Book:Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman: Addressed to Mary S. Parker

Source: Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman: Addressed to Mary S. Parker

“Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. Twenty millions in the temperate zone, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, full of vigor, industry, inventive genius, educated, and moral; increasing by immigration rapidly, and, above all, free--all free--will form a confederacy of twenty States scarcely inferior in real power to the unfortunate Union of thirty-three States which we had on the first of November.”

Source: Conspicuous Gallantry: Civil War Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes (Abridged)

“When I enter a library, when I enter the world of books, I feel the ghosts of the past on my shoulders urging me to speech. I hear Patrick Henry cry to the Burgsses, 'Is Life so dear, or Peace so sweet, to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?' I hear Sojourner Truth tell me that the hand that rocks the cradle can also rock the boat, and William Lloyd Garrison say, 'I am in earnest, I will not be silenced.'”

World Feels Book Hands Past Rocks Cry Sweet Speech Slavery Library Dear Ghost Shoulders Boat Chains Earnest Cradle Sojourners

Author:Sara Paretsky

“Your thoughts and your actions are fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. I, on the other hand, brought you freedom. Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible. So, fear your captors, your masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing me.”

Hands Action Term Forever Impossible Masters Waste Slavery Fixed Expensive Don't Waste Your Time Don Juan

Author:Carlos Castaneda

“Think about it: we went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.”

Thinking Hands Christian Pieces Citizens Slavery Property Chains Pagan Ballots Wrists American Citizens

Book:Papers: The Autobiographical Writings

Source: Papers: The Autobiographical Writings

“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.”

Hands Given Dying Slavery Instruments Faculty Assistance Villainy Writs Of Assistance

Author:James Otis

“I add my oath of protection to the bone,' he said in a whisper. 'To you now and to any child you may bear in the future. I would trade no day I spend with you for a life of safe slavery. I accepted the post of Seeker of my own free will. And if Darken Rahl takes the whole world into madness, then we will die with a sword in our hands, not chains on our wings. We will not allow it to be easy for them to kill us; they will pay a high price. We will fight with our last breath if need be, and in our death, let us inflict a wound on him that will fester until it claims him.”

Source: Wizard's First Rule

“I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me - and I think He has - I believe I am ready.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Believe Hands America Hate I Believe Ready Slavery Injustice Storm Storms Coming

Book:The Lincoln encyclopedia: the spoken and written words of A. Lincoln arranged for ready reference

Source: The Lincoln encyclopedia: the spoken and written words of A. Lincoln arranged for ready reference

“From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality.”

Ifs Stills I Can Hands Spirit House My Own Beats Singing Slavery Shining Faults Sake Defeat Immortality Sand Gray Fragile Refuge Pulse Sifting

Book:Love Songs

Source: Love Songs

“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.”

Source: The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction

“Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole Republic, the dignity of the elective franchise, - all alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free.”

Source: Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions: 1878-1886

“So efficient are the available instruments of slavery; fingerprints, lie detectors, brain washings, gas chambers; that we shiver at the thought of political change which might put these instruments in the hands of men of hate.”

Men Hands Might Political Lying Hate Brain Slavery Instruments Available Gas Despise Efficient Chamber Washing Shiver Fingerprints Political Change Gas Chambers

Author:Bernard Baruch

“I think that if anything can be proved by natural theology, it is that slavery is morally wrong. God gave man a mouth to receive bread, hands to feed it, and his hand has a right to carry bread to his mouth without controversy.”

Ifs Thinking Men Hands Natural Religious Mouths Slavery Theology Bread Controversy

Book:The collected works of Abraham Lincoln

Source: The collected works of Abraham Lincoln

“A strong belief in fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand, there is a comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.”

Kind God Hands Belief Strong Prayer Destiny Fate Worst Comfort Slavery Moved Gods Will Our Prayers

Author:Epicurus

“I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.”

Should May States Hands Seems Natural Liberty Clear Dying Duty Slavery Unions Dues Paradox Paramount New Places Natural Death Free State

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“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

“If I were to meet the slave-traders who kidnapped me and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands, for if that did not happen, I would not be a Christian and Religious today... The Lord has loved me so much: we must love everyone... we must be compassionate!”

“Under chattel slavery and feudalism, exploitation was concrete and personalized in the producer's relationship with his master. The slave and peasant knew exactly who was screwing them. The modern worker, on the other hand, feels a pounding sensation, but has only a vague idea where it is coming from.”

Feels Ideas Hands Modern Masters Slavery Slave Workers Producers Sensations Concrete Exploitation Vague Peasants Feudalism Personalized Vague Ideas

Author:Kevin Carson

“Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freeman with votes in their hands are left without education.”

Hands Left Education Half Millions Vote Slavery Emancipation Freeman

Author:Robert Charles Winthrop

“While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a Single day.”

Giving Years Humans Wells Mean Two Ends Hands Courses Prayer Results Progress Influence Thousand Slavery Finals Aids Thousand Years Our Prayers Abolition

Author:Robert E. Lee

“It [slavery] has exercised absolute mastery over the American Church. . . . With the Bible in their hands, her priesthood have attempted to prove that slavery came down from God out of heaven. They have become slaveholders and dealers in human flesh.”

Humans Hands Religion Heaven Church Prove Absolutes Slavery Flesh Mastery Dealer Priesthood Slaveholders

Author:William Lloyd Garrison

“If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite. ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery.”

“The land on which they (the Founding Fathers) formed this Union was stolen. The hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it. The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

Stills Moments Hands Lying Father Belief Nations Class Land Citizens Built Slavery Unions Liberation Genocide Imperfect Fabric Torn Founding Imperialism Stolen

Author:Melissa Harris-Perry

“I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies, - opposed to a protective tariff, - opposed to a latitudinal construction of the constitution, - opposed to slavery agitation and disunion. This is my democracy. Point to a single act of my public career not in keeping with these principles.”

“As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth . . . Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.”

Children Hard Hands Suffering Results Taken Mass Hundred Labor Slavery Suicide Committed Chosen Conception Pregnant Exhausted Delivery Childbirth

Book:Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Source: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

“The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.”

Source: Sketches of American Policy Under the Following Heads: I. Theory of Government, II. Governments on the Eastern Continent, III. American States, Or, the Principles of the American Constitutions Contrasted with Those of European States, IV. Plan of Policy for Improving the Advantages and Perpetuating the Union of the American States

“Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves.”

“When human hearts break and human hearts despair, then from the twilight of the past the great conquerors of distress and care, of disgrace and misery, of spiritual slavery and physical compulsion, look down on them and hold out their eternal hands to the despairing mortals.”

Humans Looks Heart Hands Care Past Spiritual Break Despair Eternal Slavery Misery Mortals Twilight Distress Human Heart Compulsion Disgrace Conqueror Heart Break

Book:Mein Kampf

Source: Mein Kampf

“No matter how many red Xs we write on our hands to end slavery, as long as these same hands are clicking on pornographic websites and scrolling through sexual pictures and videos, we are frauds to the core.”

Writing Long Ends Matter Hands Red Slavery Core Video Fraud Website Scrolling

Book:Counter Culture: Following Christ in an Anti-Christian Age

Source: Counter Culture: Following Christ in an Anti-Christian Age

“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.”

“The choice lies between property on the one hand and slavery, public or private, on the other. There is no third issue.”

Hands Lying Choices Issues Thirds Slavery Property

Book:An Essay on the Restoration of Property

Source: An Essay on the Restoration of Property

“To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.”

Men Littles Has Beens Hands Able Poor Numbers Rich Mass Labor Slavery Trade Lays Hiring Rich Man Yoke Small Numbers

Author:Pope Leo XIII

“With education symmetrical and true we will take the dead mass buried by slavery's hand and touch them to life. This beauteous angel, which has always done its work for those on earth, will roll away the stone from the tomb where is buried a race, and my people will come forth to their glory and the amazement of the world.”

People World Done Hands Earth Freedom Race Liberty Mass Glory Angel Stones Slavery Buried Tombs Amazement Symmetrical

Author:William Tecumseh Vernon

“The blacks of this region are a cheerful, careless, dirty, race, not hard worked, and in many respects indulgently treated. It is of course the desire of the master that his slaves shall be laborious; on the other hand it is the determination of the slave to lead as easy a life as he can. The master has the power of punishment on his side; the slave, on his, has invincible inclination, and a thousand expedients learned by long practice... Good natured though imperfect and slovenly obedience on one side, is purchased by good treatment on the other.”

“Raphael painted, Luther preached, Corneille wrote, and Milton sang; and through it all, for four hundred years, the dark captives wound to the sea amid the bleaching bones of the dead: for four hundred years the sharks followed the scurrying ships; for four hundred years America was strewn with the living and dying millions of a transplanted race; for four hundred years Ethiopia stretched forth her hands unto God.”

Source: Black Folk Then and Now (The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois): An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race