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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

MenTryingHumansLongWarGodStoriesReligionChristianityClassPovertyTerribleAmbitionSlaveryMereEmpiresHopelessHuman HistoryProstitution
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice... Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

MenHumansMadeSometimesActionFallNaturalJusticeHuman BeingsInspiringPovertyGenerationsGreatnessTasksOvercomingSlaveryCharityHumanitarianApartheid
Author:Nelson Mandela
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“The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.”

HumansMayDoeMotivationalTogetherReligionAtheismSlaveryBoundsAtheistBridesCrudeCleansingWarrantsMassacresEthnic CleansingMammalsTraffickingGod Is Not GreatSubtle Atheist
Book:God is Not Great
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“If no one had ever challenged religious authority, there’d be no democracy, no public schools, women’s rights, improvements to science and medicine, evolution of slavery and no laws against child abuse or spousal abuse. I was afraid to challenge my religious beliefs because that was the basis of creation—mine anyway. I was afraid to question the Bible or anything in it, and when I did, that’s when I became involved with PFLAG and realized that my son was a perfectly normal human being and there was nothing for God to heal because Bobby was perfect just the way he was.”

IfsWayHumansChildrenSchoolLawBeliefChallengesReligiousHuman BeingsPerfectDemocracyRightsCreationMinesSonEvolutionInvolvedAuthorityNormalAbuseBasesSlaveryMedicineImprovementHealMy SonChild AbuseWomens RightsPublic SchoolReligious BeliefPerfectly Normal
Author:Mary Griffith
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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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“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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“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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“He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.”

WayWantMindHumansSoulReasonLightLyingLibertyMoralInfluenceInstitutionsSlaverySlavePerpetualPreparingHuman Soul
Book:The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858
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“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.”

PeopleHumansLibertyRightsEconomicGunEmpowermentEconomicsSlaveryListsWelfareExpandingHousingEmpoweredEntitlementCattleDependencyBarnsHayBosniaRations
Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due to the sympathies of our nature; in fine, to our character as a people, both abroad and at home, that they should be considered, as much as possible, in the light of human beings, and not as mere property. As such, they are acted on by our laws, and have an interest in our laws. They may be considered as making a part, though a degraded part, of the families to which they belong.”

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Book:Selected Writings of James Madison
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“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.”

IfsHumansMaySometimesCareEvilHuman NatureSeriousSourceSlaveryAbolitionAbolition Of SlaverySlavery Freedom
Book:The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author
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“But whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their re- establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.”

HumansPersonsNationsUnderstandingLordOpinionRightsSubjectsTalentColorEqualDegreesSlaveryPropertySuperiorsHopefulEstablishmentNewtonIsaacHuman Family
Book:Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts
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“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...”

PeopleMenShouldHumansPersonsWarChristianLibertyRightsHuman NatureKingsNegativeSlaverySacredDeterminedPracticalsMiserableBritainCommerceWarfareOffendedTransportationDeclaration Of IndependenceGreat BritainInfidelHemisphereCaptivatingE CommerceSuppressing
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Slavery is ...an atrocious debasement of human nature.”

HumansHuman NatureSlavery
Book:The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author
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“Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery.”

HumansWarGovernmentCommonConscienceDignityAimSlaveryInstrumentsCommon SensePatriotismAnti WarAmbitiousSubmissionSimplestAttainmentHuman DignityRenunciationMercenary
Book:The kingdom of God: and peace essays
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“There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”

MenHumansHeartFactsPassionWishLevelsPowerfulTasteWeakSlaveryEqualityHumbleInequalityHuman HeartHonoredManlyDepraved
Book:Democracy in America
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“To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other...when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.”

MenHumansWholeTogetherFormHumanityExistenceHalfSubjectsBearsCoupleRelationIndependentSlaveryRefuseDenyGenuineHypocrisySignificanceDivisionAbolish
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“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.”

GivingYearsHumansWellsMeanTwoEndsHandsCoursesPrayerResultsProgressInfluenceThousandSlaveryFinalsAidsThousand YearsOur PrayersAbolition
Author:Robert E. Lee
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“The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights... not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide... Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality... It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake.”

HumansChildrenAgeReligionReligiousPovertyRightsAuthoritySlaveryHuman RightsOppressionInequalityBurningIndifferenceTortureGenocideStakesJustificationExploitationPersecutionHierarchyEnthusiasticAbandonmentNotableSmall ChildDisappearanceAcquiescenceGreat ReligiousBurning At The Stake
Author:Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
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“In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. . . . There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; . . . she was doing in all this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery.”

HumansChildrenAgeReligionChurchCenturyPositionSlaveryTradeSlave
Author:Mark Twain
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“The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery-even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness-is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself.”

HumansMeanStillsStatesImaginationJusticeDegreesCapableFairsAbsolutesSlaveryMereOneselfAspirationMisfortunesBetrayFanaticismFreedom Of ThoughtHeirsEliminationSustainingMisuse
Author:Andre Breton
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“Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as 'unnecessary.' For example, it is frightful even to think there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day; children being used as soldiers, abused and killed in armed conflicts; and children being bought and sold in that terrible form of modern slavery which is human trafficking, which is a crime against humanity.”

ThinkingHumansChildrenLightFormUsedHumanityHuman BeingsInspiringWiseModernCrimeExampleObjectsTerribleConflictVictimSlaverySoldierAbortionThrownUnnecessaryPro LifeDiscardedHuman TraffickingTraffickingCrimes Against HumanityArmed ConflictCatholic Pro LifeModern SlaveryDispensable
Author:Pope Francis
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“It was not Christianity which freed the slave: Christianity accepted slavery; Christian ministers defended it; Christian merchants trafficked in human flesh and blood, and drew their profits from the unspeakable horrors of the middle passage. Christian slaveholders treated their slaves as they did the cattle in their fields: they worked them, scourged them, mated them , parted them, and sold them at will. Abolition came with the decline in religious belief, and largely through the efforts of those who were denounced as heretics.”

HumansChristianBeliefReligiousEffortChristianityBloodMiddleFieldsHorrorSlaverySlaveProfitFleshAcceptedTreatedMinistersPassagesDeclineMerchantsReligious BeliefCattleAbolitionHereticUnspeakableFlesh And BloodSlaveholdersMiddle Passage
Author:Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
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“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.”

YearsHumansRealHardAmericaPastLyingFoundBlackAnswersProudTasteYears AgoAnd LoveSlaveryRoseEndureHumbleThis LifeTwilightAshesOur PastStrifeLife And LoveYour PastBountyIndignityNightfall
Author:W. E. B. Du Bois
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“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.”

PeopleIfsMenGivingHumansStatesMomentsHandsAmericaGivenUnitedUnited StatesTakenGreaterRightsSubjectsArmsBearsGunDignityConstitutionSlaveryDemocraticSlaveCome UpGasConcentrationCampsAmendmentsPigsChamberFascistsSecond AmendmentHuman DignityRight To Bear ArmsConcentration CampUnarmedGas ChambersDemocratic Rights
Author:Huey Newton
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