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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.”

LongStatesAmericaBlackWhiteUnitedUnited StatesMovementSkinsIndependentSlaveryWorkersLabourRepublicNorth AmericaBrandedWhite Skin
Book:Capital: A Critique of Political Economy - The Process of Capitalist Production
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“What shall be said, then, of those who insist upon ignoring the question of slavery as not involved in this deadly feud, and maintain that the only issue is, the support of the government and the preservation of the Union? Surely, they are "fools and blind"; for it is slaveholders alone who have conspired to seize the one, and overturn the other. As long as the enslavement of a single human being is sanctioned in the land, the curse of God will rest upon it.”

HumansLongSaidGovernmentHuman BeingsSupportIssuesLandFoolInvolvedSlaveryBlindUnionsGods WillCursePreservationEnslavementFeudsSlaveholders
Author:William Lloyd Garrison
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“Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.”

MenWorldLongNightNamesSidesPrayerHellAtheismPerspectiveEmptySickSlaveryWingsSlavePositive AtheismGravesStealingBreadNakedFatsFancyLabourPriestsBellsIdlePreyTerrificGothicMournPillarsStalkingSourGood NightLashesTapestryPageant
Author:Mary Wollstonecraft
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“Every time that a people which has long crouched in slavery and ignorance is moved to its lowest depths there appear monsters and heroes, prodigies of crime and prodigies of virtue.”

PeopleLongVirtueProgressCrimeIgnoranceHeroSlaveryMovedDepthMonstersLowestProdigies
Book:History of the Girondists: Or, Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution. From Unpublished Sources
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“The presence of the blacks is the greatest evil that threatens the United States. They increase, in the Gulf States, faster than do the whites. They cannot be kept for ever in slavery, since the tendencies of the modern world run strongly the other way. They cannot be absorbed into the white population, for the whites will not intermarry with them, not even in the North where they have been free for two generations. Once freed, they would be more dangerous than now, because they would not long submit to be debarred from political rights. A terrible struggle would ensue.”

WorldWayLongHas BeensTwoStatesWould BeRunningPoliticalEvilWhiteUnitedUnited StatesStruggleRightsGenerationsModernDangerousTerribleIncreaseSlaveryPopulationTendenciesFasterSubmitModern WorldPolitical Rights
Author:James Bryce
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“I would've written this story [Django] if [Barack] Obama were president or if he never existed. For one, I think it's time to tell a story that deals with this subject America has avoided for so long. Most countries have been forced to deal with the atrocities of their past that still affect them to this day. But America has been pretty slippery in the way that it has avoided looking slavery in the eye. I believe that's a problem.”

IfsThinkingWayBelieveLongHas BeensStillsCountryStoriesProblemEyeAmericaPastI BelievePresidentDealsWrittenSubjectsSlaveryBarackThis DayAvoidedAtrocitiesSlipperyDjango
Author:Quentin Tarantino
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“I'm looking at the head of the household, and the house hasn't been run properly for a long time, ... Clinton was the first person ever to make a formal apology to black people for slavery, which was very warm and appreciated. But African-Americans haven't healed at all . The wound is still very open. And seeing the differences in how people live, it just puts salt in it- constantly . Seeing the way we're treated within these United States ... it burns you even more every day.”

PeopleWayFirstsPersonsLongStillsStatesRunningHouseBlackDifferencesUnitedUnited StatesSeeingHavensLong TimeSlaveryClintonWarmWoundsTreatedAfrican AmericanBlack PeopleSaltApologyHouseholdFormalAppreciatedHealedFirst Person
Author:Jill Scott
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“Zwarte Piet, or 'Black Pete,' is a relic from slavery. It is something that should have long been eliminated, and it's very insulting to black Dutch people. It's shocking to me that it still exists, but I think it's about the lack of knowledge and education regarding the roots of the character in the slave trade.”

PeopleThinkingShouldLongStillsCharacterBlackRootsShould HaveSlaveryTradeSlaveShockingInsultingDutchRelicsEducation And KnowledgeSlave TradeLack Of Knowledge
Author:Roger Ross Williams
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“The population of African people in the United States is far in excess of six small European nations. Where we are going? We have to go back as best we can to where slavery and colonialism took us from. And they took us from a concept of nation management and nation maintenance. We have been so long away from home we unfortunately have forgotten how we ruled states before the foreigners got there.”

PeopleLongHas BeensStatesHomeNationsUnitedUnited StatesSixConceptsManagementSlaveryForgottenPopulationExcessColonialismForeignersMaintenanceAway From Home
Author:John Henrik Clarke
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“You pick up very well-known books on Lincoln [and] you will find almost no reference to his long-term belief in colonization. Why? Because it doesn't fit the image of the Great Emancipator. It doesn't fit the retrospective view we want to have of Lincoln as the man who was the moralist in politics, who came into office committed to ending slavery and waited to sign this document.”

MenWantWellsLongBookBeliefTermViewsKnownHe ManFitOfficePicksSlaveryCommittedLong TermDocumentsWell KnownColonizationMoralistRetrospectiveEnding Slavery
Author:Eric Foner
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“We forget the conditions - not only in slavery - but after slavery, when there was this purposeful locking out of African Americans from economic opportunity. Or we forget today's incarceration rates, and educational and housing discrimination; all of these things. We pretend that everything that has happened happened long ago, and then we act as if we all now just treat each other equally, everything will be fine.”

LongOpportunityForgetEconomicSlaveryRateEducationalDiscriminationAfrican AmericanIncarceration
Author:Ben H. Winters
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“The story of slavery is everybody's story. It is the story about how we're all shaped by, regardless of race, regardless of how long we've been in this country. We hope that we can be a factor to both educate America around this subject but maybe more importantly help Americans finally wrestle with this, talk about it, debate it, because only through that conversation can we ever find the reconciliation healing that I think we all want.”

ThinkingLongCountryHelpingHealingSlaveryDebateEducateReconciliation
Author:Lonnie Bunch
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“In studying food, you embrace everything. Food exposes the long, complex history of the South - slavery, Jim Crow segregation, class struggle, extreme hunger, sexism, and disenfranchisement. These issues are revealed through food encounters, and they contrast this with the pleasure and the inventiveness of Southern cuisine. Food is always at the heart of daily life in the South.”

HeartLongPleasureStruggleStudySlaveryEmbraceHungerDaily LifeSexismSouthernContrastSegregationCrowJim CrowInventiveness
Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
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“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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“The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.”

PeopleMenLongWholeWishPleaseAdvantageSlaveryAbsurdExpensesOne ManContradictoryCovenant
Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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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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“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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“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.”

LongPhilosophyDarkCitiesAttitudeSkyDogMy FriendsSlaveryLastingRoofRepressionWhipsObedientDeferenceTale Of Two Cities
Book:Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].
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“If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.”

PeopleIfsMeanLongFatherIndividualLostRaceGenerationsLandDangerousSucceedSlaveryGloriousProspectsCaptivesCountrymenRestoringColonization
Book:Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45
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“Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again.”

IfsLongDoneLostLaborSlaveryCompromiseExtendingNo Compromise
Book:The Modern Library Civil War Bookshelf 5-Book Bundle: Personal Memoirs, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Red Badge of Courage, Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings, The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
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“I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end.”

WayShouldMayLongIdeasDifferentEndsCountryWishSubjectsSlaverySpreadBest WayFixedLengthPropositionsMisunderstoodStrengthening
Book:Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46
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“Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane "experiences" which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. That's not really living: that is slavery with the occasional circus thrown in.”

LongHas BeensDiesPeriodsOfficeSlaverySeriesListsBoredThings To DoBoredomThrownCircusOccasionalRacksReally Living
Book:Brave Old World: A Month-by-Month Guide to Husbandry, or the Fine Art of Looking After Yourself
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“The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed... Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union.”

IfsWorldLongTwoWarStatesForceNationsVoiceUnitedUnited StatesEconomicFieldsEqualEuropeDecidedIndependenceSlaveryUnionsFinancialBlockUpsetCivil WarDivisionSectionsAbyssDominationExploitsBankersNew World OrderFederationFinancial Independence
Author:Otto von Bismarck
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“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”

IfsMayMeanLongTwoWarStatesShowsLevelsRaceEnemyStruggleRightsRacismRegardSlaverySlaveRaisedComplainingCivil RightsSouthernDeprivedObligedRevoltAbolitionFreemanAbolition Of Slavery
Book:Democracy in America
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“What words can express her [the white woman’s] humiliation when, at the close of this long conflict, the government which she had served so faithfully held her unworthy of a voice in its councils, while it recognized as the political superiors of all the noble women of the nation the negro men just emerged from slavery, and not only totally illiterate, but also densely ignorant of every public question.”

MenLongGovernmentPoliticalNationsVoiceWhiteConflictSlaveryNobleIgnorantSuperiorsHumiliationCouncilUnworthyIlliterate
Author:Susan B. Anthony
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“It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.”

LongFactsMightFormSpiritHeavenForeverSlaveryRoseSlaveNarrativeGloriousCowardiceResurrectionCrushedTombsDefianceDepartedBe A Slave
Book:Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
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“The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizens; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party.”

PeopleWellsLongWarStatesGrowthPartyRightsCitizensElementsIncreaseSlaveryDefinedCivil WarSouthernPortionsAggressionThreatenedRapidsSystematicAgitationWantonConstitutional RightsRapid Growth
Author:Isham G. Harris
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“The Irishman frees himself from slavery when he realizes the truth that the capitalist system is the most foreign thing in Ireland. The Irish question is a social question. The whole age-long fight of the Irish people against their oppressors resolves itself in the last analysis into a fight for the mastery of the means of life, the sources of production, in Ireland. Who would own and control the land? The people, or the invaders; and if the invaders, which set of them - the most recent swarm of land thieves, or the sons of the thieves of a former generation?”

PeopleIfsMeanLongWholeAgeLastsFightingSocialRealizingGenerationsLandSonSourceSlaveryProductionsFormerAnalysisResolveMasteryCapitalistIrelandThievesOppressorsSwarmsInvadersIrishmen
Author:James Connolly
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“Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop; to free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery.”

LongHas BeensHoursExistenceCuttingConditionsIncreaseSafetySlaveryWorkersKillingMissionsProtectionTyrannyWagesPettyWorkshopsSanitary
Book:The American Federationist
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“Once slavery in America was not seen as radical. It became, instead, a revolutionary idea that slaves should be freed. When we have lived under a pernicious power long enough, no matter how oppressive, we grow so accustomed to the yoke that its removal seems frightening, even wrong.”

ShouldLongIdeasMatterEnoughSeemsAmericaGrowsSlaverySlaveRadicalRevolutionaryFrighteningAccustomedRemovalPerniciousYokeSlavery In AmericaRevolutionary Ideas
Author:Gerry Spence
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