Quotessence
Home / Topics / Slavery Quotes

Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Related topics

SlaveMenPeopleIfsWarThinkingStatesHumansLibertyWorldBlackCivil WarMayShouldCountryWayChildrenAmericaFormKnowsLongHas BeensMastersBe A SlaveGovernmentMadeFreedomNationsPoliticalLawMeanStillsWhiteAbolitionRightsEvilWantInstitutionsKindLaborMoralYearsBelieveRaceTodayDoeGivingJusticeLooksMindFactsFirstsTwoAfrican AmericanFightingModernWholeEndsHandsSouthFeelsIdeasIndividualRacismSocialUnitedAbolition Of SlaveryConstitutionNeedsPersonsPrinciplesSelfChainsPropertyCausesCulturePovertyWishAnimalCenturyNamesUnionsWellsAmerican SlaveryBondageConditionsDesireDifferentIgnoranceIssuesOppressionSinBookDoneHumanityMightReasonRepublicanSegregationTogethermore

Slavery Quotes

“We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”

MenMindUseBodyMightAbleHe ManSlaverySlaveBoundsRulersSovereignMental Slavery
Book:The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers
Create image

“No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.”

MenMeanHas BeensUsedSpiritPurposeValuesIgnoranceRevolutionThousandSucceedBuiltRelationTransformationSlaveryComplexesInjusticeViolentTendenciesFactorsOppressionLiberationProtestDominantIdenticalBrutalityDestroyersInhumanityNegationComplex SystemsInhumanity To Man
Author:Emma Goldman
Create image

“What the working man sells is not directly his Labor, but his Laboring Power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. This is so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Law, but certainly by some Continental Laws, the maximum time is fixed for which a man is allowed to sell his laboring power. If allowed to do so for any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example, would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.”

IfsKnowsMenWould BeLawWorkCasesExamplePeriodsLaborSlaverySellsSlaveLifetimeFixedTemporaryCapitalistMaximumEmployersLifelongWorking ManContinentalEnglish Law
Book:German socialist philosophy
Create image

“It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality.”

MenGovernmentMightFormOrderWomenProgressConditionsSubjectsCenturyKingsCivilizationNormalWeightSlaveryMajoritySlaveDependentInferiorsPopeNobilityForms Of Government
Author:Susan B. Anthony
Create image

“The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.”

MenFactsFallLibertyMoralPrinciplesIssuesDoubtRecordsProgressConditionsTerribleConflictApproachSlaveryFinalsImprovementOmnipotencePredeterminedRetrograde
Book:Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848
Create image

“I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.”

MenMightJoySongEmotionCrySorrowSingingEvidenceSlaverySlaveCastsIslandsContentmentUncommonDesolateCast Away
Book:Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, written by himself
Create image

“Plato defined a slave as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. This condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense. It is found wherever men are engaged in activity which is socially serviceable, but whose service they do not understand and have no personal interest in.”

MenPurposeFoundInterestAcceptingConditionsActivitySlaverySlaveDefinedEngagedPlatoPersonal Interest
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“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.”

MenPersonsMadeReasonLawIndividualNationsPresidentPrinciplesHe ManKingsMoonAuthoritySlaveryMythIndividualismRepresentativesSecretarySenatorsSovereigntyTreatiesAmbassadorsValidityIndividual RightsMan In The Moon
Book:The collected works of Lysander Spooner
Create image

“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.”

IfsMenHandsUsedHoursTakenCuttingObjectsHe ManAmountBecomingLaborMachinesSlaveryWorkersSatisfiedFactoriesTwelveTireCondemningFactory Workers
Author:Max Stirner
Create image

“The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself?”

MenActionMarriageWifeTypeHusbandIdealsClaimsRegardSlaveryPrivilegeCommandDestructiveHusband And WifeRefinedRemnants
Book:An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer
Create image

“You're a slave in your own country, White Man. Each year you get to keep less of the fruits of your labor; each year it gets more difficult to carry the burden the aliens have placed upon you; each year the cheap labor of aliens makes your future less secure; each year you retreat a few steps more into the world of slavery.”

MenWorldYearsCountryDifficultWhiteStepsFutureLaborSlaverySlaveFruitBurdenSecureAliensNationalismOur FutureBlack PeopleNaziRetreatWhite ManYour FutureCheaperCheap LaborBlack NationalismFruit Of LaborWhite Power
Author:George Lincoln Rockwell
Create image

“I endorse without reserve the much-abused sentiment of Gov. M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner stone of our Republican edifice;" while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are born equal.”

MenBornRepublicanEqualStonesSlaveryCornersAbsurdSentimentsDogmaReservesEdifice
Book:Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond: Of South Carolina
Create image

“Every man that tried to destroy the Government, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers... every man that wanted to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the North, every man that opposed human liberty, that regarded the auction-block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music of the Union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought lashes on the naked back were a legal tender for labour performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child - every solitary one was a Democrat.”

MenHumansChildrenWarGovernmentWantedMotherHeavenLibertyHistoryWillingHolyShotsSlaveryUnionsDemocratSoldierEvery ManNakedBlockCivil WarLabourYellowFlagsSolitaryCorpsesAltarsFeverAmerican Civil WarLashesAuctionsYellow FeverBloodhounds
Author:Robert Green Ingersoll
Create image

“In the form of security and sufficiency for the men who labor to the profit of others, and in the form of registering and controlling them in the form of an organized public supervision of their labor, slavery is already afoot. When slavery shall succeed it will succeed through the acquiescence of those who will be enslaved, for they will prefer sufficiency and security with enslavement, to freedom, responsibility, insecurity and the threat of insufficiency.”

MenWisdomFormPoliticsResponsibilityEconomySecurityHe ManSucceedLaborSlaveryThreatProfitOrganizedLiberalismInsecurityEnslavementSufficiencySupervisionAcquiescenceInsufficiency
Book:Essays of a Catholic
Create image

“When the mass of families in a State are without property, then those who were once citizens become virtually slaves. The more the State steps in to enforce conditions of security and sufficiency; the more it regulates wages, provides compulsory insurance, doctoring, education, and in general takes over the lives of the wage-earners, for the benefit of the companies and men employing the wage-earners, the more is this condition of semi-slavery accentuated.”

MenStatesWisdomPoliticsCompanyStepsEconomyConditionsSecurityCitizensBenefitsMassSlaveryPropertySlaveLiberalismWagesSufficiencyCompulsoryEmployingDoctoring
Author:Hilaire Belloc
Create image

“If a man surrenders all power of self-determination in regard to the profits, management or ownership of the place where he works, he not only loses that special prerogative which marks him off from a cow in a pasture, but what is worse, he loses all capacity for determining any work. This is the beginning of a slavery which sometimes goes by the name of security.”

IfsMenSelfSometimesWisdomPoliticsNamesLosesEconomySpecialSecurityCapacityDeterminationMarkRegardManagementSlaveryProfitSurrenderLiberalismCowsSelf DeterminationOwnershipPrerogativePasturesTime Goes By
Author:Fulton J. Sheen
Create image

“There are three ways in which a man becomes a slave. He may be born into slavery, or forced into it, or he can deliberately accept his servitude. All three forms flourish in the modern world. Men are born and forced into slavery in Russia and her satellites states. Men in the free world invite slavery when they ask the government to provide complete security, when they surrender their freedom to the "Welfare State."”

MenWorldWayMayStatesWisdomGovernmentFormThreeAsksPoliticsBornAcceptingEconomyModernSecuritySlaverySlaveSurrenderRussiaWelfareLiberalismInvitesModern WorldServitudeSatellitesWelfare StateFree WorldThree Ways
Author:Fulton J. Sheen
Create image

“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
Create image

“This is what the government is, has always been, the creator and defender of privilege; the organization of oppression and revenge. To hope that it can ever become anything else is the vainest of delusions. They tell you that Anarchy, the dream of social order without government, is a wild fancy. The wildest dream that ever entered the heart of man is the dream that mankind can ever help itself through an appeal to law, or to come to any order that will not result in slavery wherein there is any excuse for government.”

MenHeartHelpingDreamGovernmentLawOrderSocialResultsMankindOrganizationSlaveryPrivilegeCreatorExcuseRevengeOppressionAppealsFancyDelusionAnarchyDefendersSocial OrderWildest Dreams
Author:Voltairine de Cleyre
Create image

“The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

MenChildrenFactsLawWifeAbsolutesSlaveryPropertyIslamFinalsDelayExtinctionGreat PowerFrenzyRadical IslamArrestingProselytizingGreat InfluenceMuslim FaithReligion Of IslamRetrogradeConcubines
Book:Churchill: The Power of Words
Create image

“To the Memory of those faithful brown slave-men of the plantations throughout the South, Daddy's contemporaries all, who during the war while their masters were away fighting in a cause opposed to their emancipation, brought their blankets and slept outside their mistresses' doors, thus keeping night-watch over otherwise unprotected women and children -- a faithful guardianship of which the annals of those troublous times record no instance of betrayal.”

MenChildrenWarNightFightingCausesMemoriesWatchesRecordsDoorsMastersSlaverySlaveSouthBetrayalInstanceFaithfulBrownDaddyMistressBlanketEmancipationPlantationsGuardianship
Author:Ruth Stout
Create image

“Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson...? The people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free.”

PeopleMenShouldHumansWellsHas BeensGovernmentBornUnitedRaceWatchesOughtLessonsSlaveryIgnorantHuman RaceEnlightenedOver ItDividedAwakenedCheatedYokeBorn Free
Author:James Madison
Create image

“Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race-the transition from slavery to freedom was too sudden for you! The bright dreams were too rudely dispelled; you were not prepared for the new life that opened before you, and the great masses of the North learned to look upon your helplessness with indifference-learned to speak of you as an idle, dependent race. Reason should have prompted kinder thoughts. Charity is ever kind.”

MenShouldLooksKindChildrenReasonDreamSpeakMy OwnPoorRaceMassMen And WomenShould HaveSlaveryPreparedCharityIndifferenceLook UpDependentTransitionIdleNew LifeHelplessnessKinder
Book:Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House
Create image

“And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.”

MenMayUsePoliticalDifferencesPleasurePrinciplesProductsDegreesLaborSlaveryPropertyDenyFormerLatterOwnership
Book:Individualist anarchist pamphlets
Create image

“Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings.”

MenMindHas BeensBodyGovernmentLawSocialChurchEffortCenturyDivineTheoryKingsInstitutionsSlaveryAll TimeThrownMind And BodyHabitualDefendersBad GovernmentDivine RightIncorrigibleSocial TheoryBad LawsDivine Right Of Kings
Author:H. L. Mencken
Create image