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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Slavery Quotes

“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.”

“I wanted to touch on how we look on each other. Good hair, light skin, you must be smart; if you're black, you're dark-skinned, you're ugly. That really happens. This is something that started with slavery, when they divided the house, and it's still a part of today's society and things that we battle with.”

Ifs Looks Stills Light Happens Today Wanted House Black Dark Hair Battle Smart Skins Slavery Ugly Divided Being Smart Dark Skinned Good Hair Today's Society

Author:Rapsody

“Tell a man what he may not sing and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret -- there, I have seen is slavery.”

Ifs Men May Stills Wanted Sound Voice Secret Half Slavery

Book:The Praise Singer: A Virago Modern Classic

Source: The Praise Singer: A Virago Modern Classic

“... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life.”

Ifs Kind Children Care Wanted Poor Deals Morning Masters Survival Slavery Slave Ignorant Get Up Health Care Welfare Clothings Amendments Shelter Bondage

Author:Joycelyn Elders

“I always wanted to do a movie that deals with America's horrific past with slavery, but the way I wanted to deal with it is - as opposed to doing it as a huge historical movie with a capital H - I thought it could be better if it was wrapped up in genre.”

Ifs Way Wanted America Past Deals Huge Slavery Historical Genre Horrific

Author:Quentin Tarantino

“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

“If we want to understand the actions of a man in the early 1860's, put yourself back there in his shoes. As a young man he began piloting steamboats on the Mississippi, a job he loved and wanted to do the rest of his life, he said. The Civil War ended traffic on the River and his job. He wrote about it in A History of A Campaign That Failed. He said: "I joined the Confederacy, served for two weeks, deserted, and the Confederacy fell." His attachment to the Southern ideal of slavery does not appear very sturdy.”

Ifs Men Want Doe Said Two War Action Wanted Jobs Young Week Ideals Rivers Slavery Shoes Campaigns Young Man Civil War Attachment Southern Traffic Two Weeks Mississippi Deserted Sturdy Steamboats

Author:Hal Holbrook

“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

“Liberty and freedom were the primary reason that people wanted to come here. They wanted to escape bondage, slavery, tyranny, poverty, whatever, where they lived. It was America that promised a much better life.”

People Reason Wanted America Liberty Poverty Slavery Tyranny Primaries Bondage Better Life Freedom And Liberty

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“Even the Declaration of Independence starts out all men are created equal, so I see my advocacy as part of an effort to make the equality principle everything the founders would have wanted it to be if they weren't held back by the society in which they lived and particularly the shame of slavery.”

Ifs Men Wanted Effort Principles Equal Shame Independence Slavery Founders Declaration Declaration Of Independence Advocacy

Author:Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“In terms of America, I think any profound consideration is bound to return us to the notion of twins because, though you certainly can contend there are many Americas, our history has been binary from the beginning, with its hairline fracture down the country's center between what American has wanted to be and what America has been. That fracture is slavery, of course. To some extent it's still slavery, in that collectively we refuse to come to grips with the American fact of slavery.”

Thinking Has Beens Stills Country Facts Wanted America Courses Term Return Slavery Profound Notion Bounds Refuse Consideration Twins Binary Fracture

Author:Steve Erickson

“They wanted black women to conform to the gender norms set by white society. They wanted to be recognized as 'men,' as patriarchs, by other men, including white men. Yet they could not assume this position if black women were not willing to conform to prevailing sexist gender norms. Many black women who has endured white-supremacist patriarchal domination during slavery did not want to be dominated by black men after manumission.”

Ifs Men Want Wanted Black White Position Willing Slavery Assuming Including Gender Conform White Man Norm Black Women Domination Prevailing Sexist

Author:Bell Hooks

“Outlets for the freed blacks are alone wanted for the erasure of the blot from our Republican character.”

Character Wanted Republican Slavery Outlets

Book:Letters and Other Writings of James Madison

Source: Letters and Other Writings of James Madison

“How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse to do the master's bidding. He may torture me, break my bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to do what he wanted done.”

Source: The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas

“When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings.”

“I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.”

Knows Wanted Found Slavery Slave Be A Slave

Author:Frederick Douglass