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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“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
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“Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.”

IfsGivingStillsFormLawPoliticalPassionPoliticsViewsEconomyEffectsInspireTaughtMoralityConflictImportanceSlaveryPoint Of ViewOppressionTragicMonopolySanctionsExaggeratedPerversionRobberyPolitical EconomySupposition
Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“All socialism involves slavery.... That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is -- How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit?”

WholeFormDesireIndividualCommunityResponsibilityEssentialsBenefitsLaborRelationSlaverySlaveSocialismOppressionCompelledTaxationCoercionEssential Questions
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“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
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“... some of my people could have been left [in Africa] and are living there. And I can't understand them and they don't know me and I don't know them because all we had was taken away from us. And I became kind of angry; I felt the anger of why this had to happen to us. We were so stripped and robbed of our background, we wind up with nothing.”

PeopleKnowsKindHas BeensI CanHappensLeftFeltTakenWindSlaveryAngryBackgroundsOppressionKnow MeCould Have Been
Author:Fannie Lou Hamer
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“Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa... Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty... whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies... whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die... we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ in complexion from us, a slavery, ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained.”

MenAmericaDiesLibertyEnemyMillionsLandSonPromiseThousandTenFellowsSlaveryOppressionWitnessResolutionHostOfferingWretchedFellow ManHostilityVowImposingDescendantsGrievanceShrinesComplexionExtremityLive Free
Author:St. George Tucker
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“It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.”

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Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“To take on the question of race in America and believe that you could transform this country so that it would actually be a place that was welcoming for everyone that was here, including dealing with the history of slavery and the kind of oppression this country is based on, that's an amazing moment to begin to find your own political ideals.”

BelieveKindCountryMomentsAmericaPoliticalRaceIdealsSlaveryIncludingWelcomeOppressionRace In America
Author:Amber Hollibaugh
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“The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression.”

MenHumanityJusticeLibertyRevolutionQuietSlaveryTyrannyOppressionPeacefulSubmissionBondage
Author:Frederick Douglass
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“All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”

MenWarChristianSufferingEvilReligiousCrimeAmbitionSlaveryMiseryInjusticeVicesOppressionNeglectFoundingOur Founding FathersFounding Fathers ChristianUs Founding FathersMoral PrinciplesChristian HeritageReligion And GovernmentInjustice And Oppression
Book:History of the United States: to which is prefixed a brief historical account of our [English] ancestors, from the dispersion at Babel, to their migration to America, and of the conquest of South America, by the Spaniards
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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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“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

InspirationalGivingFreedomPoorLibertyDoorsSocietyCivilizationMassGive MeSlaveryTiredSlaveRefuseBreatheImmigrationGoldenOppressionLiftsShoreYearningUnited States Of AmericaHomelessLampsWretchedMigrationTempestCivil SocietyBeing FreeIllegal ImmigrationStatue Of LibertyJuly 4th 1776Legal ImmigrationUrbanizationColossus
Author:Emma Lazarus
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“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented . . . no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.”

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Author:John Quincy Adams
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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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“Above all I ask leaders and legislators and the entire international community above all to confront the reality of those who have been displaced by force, with effective projects and new approaches in order to protect their dignity, to improve the quality of their life and to face the challenges that are emerging from modern forms of persecution, oppression and slavery.”

Has BeensRealityFacesFormOrderAsksForceCommunityChallengesQualityLeaderModernProtectProjectsApproachDignitySlaveryInternationalOppressionPersecutionRefugeeEmergingLegislatorsInternational CommunityMigrantsNew Approach
Author:Pope Francis
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“Notwithstanding the memories of slavery, and in the face poverty, ignorance, terrorism, and subjugation still deeply woven into their lives, the embittered past of blacks was taken onto a much higher plane of intellectual and artistic consideration during the Renaissance.”

PovertySlaveryTerrorismOppressionAfrican American AuthorsCreative GeniusIntellectualsAfrican LiteratureHarlem RenaissanceAfrican American MusicHarlem Renaissance HistoriansAfrican American ArtistsDemograghic ShiftsMoral Victories
Book:Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
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“Power is given only to those you allow to have power over you. No man was born with a master. The only master of all is the Creator, and he created all men to be free. Freedom is a God-given right, not a human-granted gift. No man should have to fight to breathe in good health and peace.”

GodTruthSufferingHumanityFightingPoliticsPeaceJusticeFreedomPovertyStruggleRightsHealthHumanSlaverySlaveHuman RightsCreatorBreatheGiftOppressionManFightRightFreeWorld PeaceWillWillpowerHumaneMasterFreewillCollective PowerGgod
Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“White ain't nothing.' Mama's grip did not lessen. 'It is something, Cassie. White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this Earth is something, and nobody, no matter what color is better than anybody else.' 'Then how come Mr. Simms don't know that.' 'Because he's one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big.' I stared questionably at Mama, not really understanding. Mama squeezed my hadn't and explained further, 'You see, Cassie, many years ago, when our people were fist brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country--' 'Like Big Ma's Papa and Mama?' Mama nodded. "Yes, baby. Like Papa Luke and Mama Rachael. Except they were born right here is Mississippi, but their grandparents were born in Africa. And when they came, there was some white people who thought that is was wrong for any people to be slaves. So the people who needed slaves to work in their fields and the people who were making money bringing slaves from Africa preached that black people weren't really people like white people were, so slavery was all right. They also said that slavery was good for us because it thought us to be good Christians, like the white people.' She sighed deeply, her voice fading into a distant whisper, 'But they didn't teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience. They were afraid of slave revolts and they wanted us to learn the Bible's teachings about slaves being loyal to their masters. But even teaching Christianity didn't make us stop wanting to be free and many slaves ran away.”

FreedomRaceChristianitySlaveryEqualityOppressionInequalityAfrican AmericansMississippiSlavesCivil Liberty
Author:Mildred D. Taylor
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“A human, caught under the oppression of a foreign nation in his/her own country, can be willingly to risk his/her life in order to achieve freedom. To call this act a self-sacrifice, one would have to presume that the person didn’t mind living as a slave of the British. The selfishness of a person who is willing to die, if necessary, fighting for his/her freedom, lies in the fact that he/she is unwilling to go on living in a world where he/she is no longer able to act on his/her own rules and regulations, that is, a world where rudimentary human conditions of existence are no longer possible.”

FreedomIndependenceSlaveryOppressionPatriotismNationalismFreedom FighterFighting For Freedom
Book:Prescription: Treating India's Soul
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