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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Slavery Quotes

“Humans call animals 'dumb'... after they robbed their entire own precious world. They are intelligent beings in their own right, and thoroughly self-sufficient... if not molested by humans. Yet, after millennia of slavery by selfish/callous humans they're made to look dumb! The 'superior species' in their situations would, too, appear 'dumb'.”

Ifs World Humans Looks Made Self Animal Situation Intelligent Slavery Species Selfish Superiors Dumb Sufficient Animal Rights Self Sufficient Callous

Author:Adela Popescu

“The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.”

Source: The collected works of Lysander Spooner

“The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words.”

Source: The Complete Works of Charles Sumner

“Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.”

World Needs Made Wisdom Politics Community Class Economy Modern Morality Limits Slavery Slave Technique Made It Liberalism Leisure Privileged Modern World Prerogative

Book:In Praise of Idleness

Source: In Praise of Idleness

“O execrable son! so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurped, from God not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.”

Men Humans Made Left Given Lord Son Authority Absolutes Slavery Assuming Fishes Titles Beast Aspire Dominion Brethren Donation Fowl

Book:Paradise lost

Source: Paradise lost

“Movements are not radical. Movements are the American way. A small group of abolitionists writing and speaking eventually led to the end of slavery. A few stirred-up women brought about women's voting. The Populist movement, the Progressive movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women's movement - the examples go on and on of 'little people' getting together and telling the truth about their lives. They made our government act.”

“When the first people started to argue against slavery, for example, this was a new idea. If you crowd-source, you'd never come up with this. And so the - exactly the kind of progress we've made couldn't be made if we depend it on crowd-sourcing.”

People Ifs Firsts Kind Made Ideas Progress Example Source Depends Slavery Come Up Crowds Arguing New Ideas

Author:Rebecca Goldstein

“Slavery in America was perpetuated not merely by human badness but also by human blindness. ... Men convinced themselves that a system that was so economically profitable must be morally justifiable. ... Science was commandeered to prove the biological inferiority of the Negro. Even philosophical logic was manipulated [exemplified by] an Aristotlian syllogism: All men are made in the image of God; God, as everyone knows, is not a Negro; Therefore, the Negro is not a man.”

Knows Men Humans Made America Money Prove Logic Philosophical Slavery Convinced Blindness Profitable Inferiority God Image Badness Slavery In America

Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.

“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

“If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell its peal and drown the hideous sound. The sugar they raised was excellent: nobody tasted blood in it.”

Ifs Made Sound Church Blood Madness Slavery Raised Rings Excellent Torture Sugar Bells Organs Adultery Hideous Homicide Church Bells

Book:Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him agesof education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read.”

“For all our penny-wisdom, for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts; that all men value the few real hours of life; they love to be heard; they love to be caught up into the vision of principles. We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had, in the dreary years of routine and of sin, with souls that made our souls wiser; that spoke what we thought; that told us what we knew; that gave us leave to be what we only were.”

Source: Essays and Lectures

“The first thing Islam does is to destroy the self image of the believers. It convinces them that without Islam they are worthless creatures only fit for hellfire. It tells them that their culture is jahelyyah (ignorance) and their ancestral religion was taaghoti (satanic). They are made to despise their identity and selfhood and seek their glory in their submission to Islam and slavery to its deity who was Muhammad's own alter ego.”

Firsts Doe Made Self Culture Identity Ignorance Fit Creatures Ego Glory Slavery Islam Believer Convince Despise Worthless Submission Deities Muhammad Satanic Alter Ego

Author:Ali Sina

“The mentality which made one section of the Indians look upon another as enemies was suicidal; it could only serve to perpetuate their slavery.”

Looks Made Enemy India Slavery Look Up Mentality Sections Suicidal

Author:Mahatma Gandhi

“Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part.”

People Men Made Self Government Law Results Honest Institutions Slavery Immoral Honest Man Abolition

Author:Leo Tolstoy

“The true story is that black people need to tell their history. Very few films are made by black people about slavery. That itself is a crime because slavery is a very important historical event that has held our people hostage. Forget white people's role in it. In the end what's important is black people remain and live with the scars and psychological issues.”

“The loss of seriousness seems to me to be, in effect, a loss of hope. I think that the thing that made people rise to real ambition, real gravity was the sense of posterity, for example - a word that I can remember hearing quite often when I was a child and I never hear anymore. People actually wanted to make the world good for people in generations that they would never see. It makes people think in very large terms to try to liberate women, for example, or to try to eliminate slavery.”

People Thinking World Trying Children Made I Can Real Seems Wanted Remember Term Loss Generations Effects Example Ambition Slavery Hearing Gravity Posterity Seriousness

Author:Marilynne Robinson

“The Slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline, and thus made unfit for slavery. And as soon as he becomes unfit for slavery, the master will no longer desire to hold him as a slave.”

Made Desire Masters Discipline Fit Slavery Slave

Author:Jefferson Davis

“In the beginning this was just an idea. Then it was a short story. Then it was a script. Each step was pretty exciting to see people come on board to support the project. It's gratifying to know that more people are seeing my work in this form than my work as a playwright. And it's been fun to hear people's response to seeing it. I've been having some deep conversations with strangers and friends about how much it has made them think about slavery and its impact today.”

“One of the most tragic things about slavery was the mental enslavement, the way they made us believe that we were worth nothing; and that's what she's fighting against.”

Way Believe Made Fighting Slavery Tragic Enslavement

Author:Jurnee Smollett

“So when I heard that we don't have our names, we don't speak our true Arabic language, we were robbed of Islam, our true religion, and we've been made deaf, dumb, and blind in slavery.And Elijah Muhammad was taught by Allah, who we refer to as God, to teach us the truth that will free us.And when I heard it, I've been free ever since. I have no racial problems, I don't go where I'm not wanted.”

Made Problem Wanted Names Speak Language Teach Heard Taught Slavery Blind Islam Dumb Deaf Muhammad True Religion Elijah Elijah Muhammad Arabic Language

Author:Muhammad Ali

“The Bible Belt, the religious South, is the section of the country that practiced slavery until the war made them give it up. They practiced segregation. They practiced lynchings. I don't see any great value in that.”

Giving Made War Country Values Religious Slavery South Sections Segregation Belts Lynching Great Value

Author:John Shelby Spong

“I've been reading about and writing about the Civil War period and it is so striking that slavery was never made right - [Abraham] Lincoln was killed, Reconstruction came along, and all of that inequity was frozen in place and carried forward rather smugly. So I think the burden is now upon us white people, to say that this systemic inequality offends us.”

People Thinking Writing Made War Reading White Periods Slavery Burden Inequality Civil War Frozen Abraham Reconstruction

Author:George Saunders

“The Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s.”

“When you think about the abolition of slavery for example, for the ruling class with the rich white people owning plantations and states, and things like that, slavery was to their benefit. To oppose it didn't make any sense at all on a rational basis. But on a rights basis, on a principle basis, it made obvious, overwhelming sense.”

People Thinking Made States White Class Principles Rich Rights Example Benefits Bases Slavery Obvious Rational Overwhelming Ruling Abolition Plantations Abolition Of Slavery

Author:Edward Snowden

“That's one of the beauties, I think, of African American life. There was this thing called slavery and adjustments were made. It literally destroyed millions, but it didn't destroy everybody and it didn't destroy the inner lives of all the people who experienced it.”

People Thinking Made Millions Slavery Destroyed Made It African American Adjustment Inner Life American Life

Author:John Edgar Wideman

“It was Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Wendell Phillips - these were the people who made abolition real. Now, none of you guys is in favor of slavery, right?”

People Made Real Guy Slavery Favors Brown Abolition John Brown

Author:Bill Ayers

“The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever.”

People Made Real Today Lasts America Names Given Taken Masters Slavery Slave Refuse Destroyed Acknowledge Rejects Forefathers

Author:Malcolm X

“The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.”

People Ifs Has Beens Made Today America Born Economy Fate Terrible Slavery Ancestor Descendants

Author:Thomas Sowell

“What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion, but slavery was a $3 billion asset.”

Made War America Forget Slavery Billions African American Civil War Contribution Assets Railroads

Author:Andrew Young

“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.”

Men Humans Made Sometimes Action Fall Natural Justice Human Beings Inspiring Poverty Generations Greatness Tasks Overcoming Slavery Charity Humanitarian Apartheid

Author:Nelson Mandela

“He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen - and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death. Hurray then for funerals!”

People Humans Made War Whole Happens Drama Commitment Slavery Bored Funeral Complication Loveless

Book:The fall

Source: The fall

“The american dream wasn't meant for me, cause lady liberty's a hypocrite she lied to me, promised me freedom,education, and equality never gave me nothing but slavery but now look at how dangerous you made me callin me a mad man because im strong and bold.”

Men Looks Made Dream Strong Causes Liberty Dangerous Slavery Mad Rapper American Dream Lied Hypocrite Mad Men Lied To Me

Author:Tupac Shakur

“Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales? If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness.”

People Ifs Inspirational Made Might Pain Night Song Given Black Memories Secret Known Sacrifice Poet Weakness Lonely Empty Raises Slavery Tales Tragic Pot Revealing Monument Lonely Nights

Author:Maya Angelou

“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

“Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning.”

Should Mean Made Sometimes Felt Term Interest Heard Groups Blood Brother Slavery Stranger Curious My Brother Grandmother My Sister Brothers And Sisters True Meaning

Book:My Bondage and My Freedom ...

Source: My Bondage and My Freedom ...

“Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.”

Thinking Men Want Made Reason Truth Asks Freedom Liberty Slavery Rounds Tyranny Rebellion Tyrants Globes Irresistible Appearing Hunted

Book:Paine: Political Writings

Source: Paine: Political Writings

“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.”

Men Humans Made Action Natural Justice Human Beings Poor Poverty Overcoming Social Justice Slavery Humanitarian Apartheid Ending Poverty Long Walk To Freedom World Poverty Global Poverty

Book:Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom

Source: Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom

“I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the Acts of Congress.' If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.”

Source: Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46

“We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.”

Men Made Color Periods Slavery Mere Distinction Enlightened Dominion Constitutional Convention

Book:The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia, in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yate's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution

Source: The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia, in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yate's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution

“Marriage is but slavery made to appear civilized.”

Made Slavery Civilized

Book:The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

Source: The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

“In the Shadow of Slavery covers two and a half centuries of black life in New York City, and skillfully interweaves the categories of race and class as they affected the formation of African American identity. Leslie Harris has made a major contribution to our understanding of the black experience.”

“If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.”

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State

“Individuals who have been wronged by unlawful racial discrimination should be made whole; but under our Constitution there can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the individual. ...To pursue the concept of racial entitlement - even for the most admirable and benign of purposes - is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American.”

“Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.”

Made Artist Choices Fighting Sides Scientist Slavery Alternatives Fighting For Freedom

Author:Paul Robeson

“If a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker.”

Source: Interviews

“Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.”

Made War Modern Slavery Slave Debt Imposing Old Time

Book:Ezra Pound Speaking

Source: Ezra Pound Speaking

“I say, then, that viewed from that standpoint, there is but one single subject of complaint which Virginia has to make against the government under which we live; a complaint made by the whole South, and that is on the subject of African slavery.”

Made War Whole Government Subjects Slavery South Civil War Complaints Virginia Standpoint

Author:John Brown Baldwin

“But, sir, the great cause of complaint now is the slavery question, and the questions growing out of it. If there is any other cause of complaint which has been influential in any quarter, to bring about the crisis which is now upon us; if any State or any people have made the troubles growing out of this question, a pretext for agitation instead of a cause of honest complaint, Virginia can have no sympathy whatever, in any such feeling, in any such policy, in any such attempt. It is the slavery question. Is it not so?”

People Ifs Has Beens Made War States Feelings Causes Growing Trouble Honest Policy Crisis Slavery Civil War Quarters Complaints Influential Virginia Pretext Agitation No Sympathy

Author:John Brown Baldwin

“The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer's money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to “help.””

Wells Kind Made War Helping Government Black Poverty Evidence Program Slavery Moved Spending Discrimination All Kinds Welfare Assumption Survived Federal Government Taxpayers Black Family

Author:Thomas Sowell