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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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“If you're creating a slave situation, you would almost never bring women. And if we look at Slavery for example, we look at the Greeks and the Romans, right? It was always men. They never brought any women. Because women carry the seeds of the revolution, right? And if you have the men by themselves, then you can do what the French did with the Blackfeet, which is breed them out.”

IfsMenLooksCan DoSituationExampleHe ManRevolutionCreatingSlaverySlaveSeedsGreek
Author:Nikki Giovanni
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“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

KnowsGivingMayWarAmericaDeathCoursesFreedomBusinessLibertyHistorySocietySweetRevolutionEthicsGive MeSlaveryDearLibertarianChainsPatriotismPatrioticAmendmentsLibertarianismAlmightyPatriotFounding4th Of JulyFreedom And LibertyFreedom LibertyOur Founding FathersProperty RightsAmerican RevolutionLimited GovernmentTotal WarFounding Fathers ChristianPriceAlmighty GodBearing ArmsFounding Fathers ReligionIndividual LibertyAmerican GovernmentLimiting GovernmentRights And FreedomsAmerican Founding FathersAmerican PatrioticLimited FreedomGreat PatrioticUs ConstitutionAmerican PatriotismAmerican LibertyFounding Fathers DemocracyAmerica FreedomPatriotism In AmericaPrice Of FreedomRevolution Founding FathersGood PatrioticLimiting FreedomConstitutional LawConstitutional GovernmentGod And CountryTyranny Founding FathersSecurity And FreedomAmerican Independence DayInspiring PatrioticSecurity And Liberty
Author:Patrick Henry
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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.”

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Author:Frederick Douglass
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“The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!”

IfsMayWarEnoughDesireStrongPresidentHeardRevolutionBattleLateElectionSlaveryBraveActiveChainsInevitableRepeatsToo LateRetiringRetreatContestsSubmissionBostonAmerican RevolutionVigilantForged
Author:Patrick Henry
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“I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free.”

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Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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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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“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.”

MayMeanCountrySidesNaturalJusticeSleepNumbersSituationForeverEventsRevolutionSlaveryFortuneWheelsAttributesAlmightyConsideringContestsInterferenceWheel Of Fortune
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“[T]he hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty - that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.”

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Book:Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious
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“This was the first Memorial Day [Monday, May 1st, 1865]. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is Black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.”

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Author:David W. Blight
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“The moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject slavery, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood.”

IfsNeedsShouldFirstsI CanWarMomentsHomeHouseStepsPracticeTakenBloodSubjectsRevolutionSlaveryUnionsFortuneInstantCivil WarSeatsAbandonRepublicLegislation
Book:Remarks of Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, on the Question of Receiving Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia
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“Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors.”

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Book:Haiti After the Earthquake
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“The slave who cannot assume his revolt does not deserve pity. That slave alone is responsible for his misfortune if he deludes himself about the suspect condescension of a master’s false promise of freedom. Only struggle liberates, and we call on all our sisters of all races to rise up to regain their rights.”

WomenStruggleFeminismRevolutionSlaveryLiberationColonialismAfrican FeminismBurkina Faso
Book:Thomas Sankara speaks: the Burkina Faso revolution, 1983-87
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“When a slave rebels, it is nothing much to the people who read about it later. Just thin words on thinner paper, worn finer by the friction of history. "So you were slaves? So what?" They whisper, like it's nothing. But to the people who live through a slave rebellion, both those who take their dominance for granted, until it comes for them in the dark, and those who would see the world burn before enduring one moment longer in their place. That is not a metaphor, Essun. Not hyperbole. I did watch the world burn. Say nothing to me of innocent bystanders, unearned suffering, heartless vengeance. When a comm builds atop a fault line, do you blame its walls when they inevitably crush the people inside? No; you blame whoever was stupid enough to think they could defy the laws of nature forever. Well, some worlds are built on a fault line of pain, held up by nightmares. Don’t lament when those worlds fall. Rage that they were built doomed in the first place.”

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Author:N.K. Jemisin
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