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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Slavery Quotes

“I can speak of slavery only so far as it came under my own observation - only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person.”

Persons I Can Speak My Own Known Slavery Observation

Book:Slave Narratives Compilation: Twelve Years A Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave

Source: Slave Narratives Compilation: Twelve Years A Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave

“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

“Teach the child to respect that which is not respectable and you teach the child the first requirement of slavery: submission to unjust authority. Children are persons. They are small persons whose perfect souls have not yet been ground through the meat grinder of slavery.”

Firsts Children Persons Soul Perfect Teach Authority Slavery Meat Requirements Unjust Submission Respectable Grinder Small Person

Book:Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century

Source: Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century

“It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name - modern slavery.”

“If he's - the inference is that somehow he thinks slavery is a - is a noble institution I would - I would strongly reject that assumption - that John Ashcroft is a openminded, inclusive person.”

Ifs Thinking Persons Humor Political Institutions Slavery Noble Assumption Rejects Political Humor Inference

Author:George W. Bush

“Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.”

Persons Government Pay Liberty Subjects Masters Taxes Slavery Property Badges

Book:An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations

Source: An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations

“A civilization built on dualism and war within and between persons, one that puts its most creative minds and its best engineers to sadistic work building more and more destructive weapons, is no civilization at all. It needs a radical transformation from the heart outwards. It needs to outgrow and outlaw war just as in the last century it outlawed slavery. The human race has outgrown war, but it hardly knows it yet.”

“Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.”

Source: A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia

“We are a feelingless people. If we could really feel, the pain would be so great that we would stop all the suffering. If we could feel that one person every six seconds dies of starvation ... we would stop it. ... If we could really feel it in the bowels, the groin, in the throat, in the breast, we would go into the streets and stop the war, stop slavery, stop the prisons, stop the killing, stop destruction.”

People Ifs Feels Persons War Would Be Pain Suffering Dies Streets Six Destruction Slavery Prison Killing Breasts Throat Seconds Starvation That One Person Bowels

Author:Julian Beck

“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.”

People Persons Done Law Used Easy Liberty Degrees Benefits Independence Slavery Property Oppression Proportion Legislators Plunder Personal Independence

Author:Frederic Bastiat

“If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.”

Ifs Persons Has Beens Law Parent Church White Common Tradition Slavery Common Sense Pastor Your Past

Author:Bill Ayers

“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.”

“But really, for me, I tried to find first-person accounts. I tried to read stories from men and women who had survived slavery because it's different when you hear it from their mouths instead of reading it from a history book.”

Men Firsts Persons Book Different Stories Reading Mouths Men And Women Accounts Slavery Survived First Person History Books

Author:Jurnee Smollett

“Emerson was not passionate about abolition. He wasn't a passionate person. He was a cool intellectual, and I think he probably was a little uncomfortable with passionate people, but he was against slavery.”

People Thinking Littles Persons Intellectual Slavery Passionate Uncomfortable Abolition

Author:Nell Irvin Painter

“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.”

“I'm not a person that really deal in color. I recognize the inequities that certain cultures have to go through. I understand the history of slavery and all those things. But I'm not a victim. I can vote, I can participant. I can invest my money. I can invest my time. And that's what I'm doing. I'm not working for anybody. I'm not making any money doing what I'm doing. I'm doing it because someone did it for me.”

Persons I Can Certain Culture Deals Color Vote Victim Slavery My Time Participants

Author:Jim Brown

“My people couldn't have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better. And there's some songs from the 19th and 18th century that say [sings], "By and by, by and by, I will lay down, this heavy load." And I mean, so many songs that spoke of hope and understand it better by and by. Amazing songs. So that the slaves, just knowing that he, she, did not have the right legally to walk within one inch away from where the slave owner dictated, and yet the same person, wrote and sang with fervor, "If the lord wants somebody, here am I, send me." It's amazing.”

“One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. 'One-size-fits-all,' and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is 'slavery.'”

Want Needs May Persons Country States Names Church Cities Security Adventure Fit Healthy Diversity Slavery Size Determined Leisure One Size Fits All

Author:David Mamet

“Our spirits have their own private way of understanding each other, of becoming intimate, while our external persons are still trapped in the commerce of ordinary words, in the slavery of social rules. Souls have their own needs and their own ambitions, which the body ignores when it sees that it's impossible to satisfy them or achieve them.”

Way Needs Persons Stills Soul Body Spirit Social Understanding Impossible Achieve Becoming Ambition Ordinary Slavery Intimate Trapped Commerce Understanding Each Other

Book:The late Mattia Pascal

Source: The late Mattia Pascal

“As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.”

Inspirational Mean Persons Long Might Women Creativity Positive Conflict Slavery Equality Memorable Soar Peace And Justice Peace Justice Nigeria Independence

Author:Marian Anderson

“The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists in this: In the former state a man is governed by the laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or by his representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they depend upon the pleasure of his master. It is easy to discern which of these two states is preferable.”

Men Persons Two States Law Given Easy Pleasure Liberty Cases Masters Depends Slavery Property Former Distinction Latter Representatives Consent

Book:The Official and Other Papers ...

Source: The Official and Other Papers ...

“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

“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.”

Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts

“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...”

“By reserving the penalty of death for black defendants, or for the poor, or for those convicted of killing white persons, we perpetrate the ugly legacy of slavery-teaching our children that some lives are inherently less precious than others.”

Children Persons Black White Poor Teaching Our Children Slavery Killing Ugly Legacy Penalties Death Penalty

Author:Joseph Lowery

“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.”

Believe Mean Persons Ideas Care Political House Politics Realizing Office Regard Slavery Health Care Hospitals Nurse Physicians Abstraction Assistants Janitor

Author:Rand Paul

“Some suffering is given in order to chastise and correct a person for wrongful patterns of life (as in the case of Jonah imperiled by the storm), some suffering is given not to correct past wrongs but to prevent future ones (as in the case of Joseph sold into slavery), and some suffering has no purpose other than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone and so discover the ultimate peace and freedom.”

Persons God Pain Past Purpose Suffering Order Given Cases Ultimate Slavery Patterns Storm God Love Jonah Past Wrongs

Book:Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Source: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“No, this is not what a fair God would do. And why does it not say anywhere in the Bible that slavery is wrong? It only says that you should treat your slaves well. Well, I don't care if you treat them well. How is it possible that it is not immoral to own another person? Why isn't that one of the Ten Commandments? 'Thou shalt not own another person.' You want to sit here and tell me that fornication is worse than owning someone?”

Ifs Want Should Wells Persons Doe Care Ten Fairs Treats Slavery Slave Don't Care I Don't Care Commandments Immoral Ten Commandments

Author:Mira Sorvino

“No self-respecting person who loves humanity or wishes for a world of greater equality and justice should have anything to do with whitewashing the slavery and extermination of Marxism-Leninism.”

World Should Persons Self Humanity Wish Justice Greater Should Have Slavery Marxism Equality And Justice Extermination Marxism Leninism

Author:Anthony Gregory

“At times some people use force or fraud to take from others without willful, voluntary consent. Normally, the initiation of force to take life is murder, to take liberty is slavery, and to take property is theft. It is the same whether these actions are done by one person acting alone, by the many acting against a few, or even by officials with fine hats and titles.”

People Persons Done Use Action Life Is Force Freedom Acting Liberty Fine Murder Slavery Property Titles Officials Hats Fraud Consent Theft Initiation Organized Crime White Collar Crime

Author:Ken Schoolland

“Freedom from slavery is achieved only when a person starts to feel and understand that he would prefer death to life as a slave.”

Feels Persons Death Understanding Freedom Slavery Slave Breaking Free

Author:Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale

“Slavery is what slavery's always been: About one person controlling another person using violence and then exploiting them economically, paying them nothing. That's what slavery's about”

Persons Violence Slavery

Author:Kevin Bales

“How many people worldwide are victims of this type of slavery, in which the person is at the service of his or her work, while work should offer a service to people so they may have dignity. I ask my brothers and sisters in faith and all men and women of good will for a decisive choice to combat trafficking in persons, which includes "slave labor."”

People Men Should May Persons Choices Asks Brother Type Offers Men And Women Labor Dignity Victim Slavery Slave My Brother Combat Brothers And Sisters Good Will Trafficking Slave Labor

Author:Pope Francis

“Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he has to give himself up into slavery. Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research.”

Giving Persons Success Games Difficult Serious Demand Research Reflection Slavery Bottom Chess Hearted Zealous Faint Hearted

Author:Wilhelm Steinitz

“There is an unbroken line of police violence in the United States that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the development of the Ku Klux Klan. There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.”

Way Persons States Whole Lines Justice United United States Violence Development Police Slavery Racist Aftermath Unbroken Edifice Ku Klux Klan Police Violence

Author:Angela Davis

“To take a person out of slavery takes an instant. To take slavery out of a person takes a process.”

Persons Process Slavery Instant

Author:Timothy Keller