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

“He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing His African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.”

KnowsWellsHeartChildrenChristianSpiritualHellGreaterDoorsApproachDrawsDevilRegardSlaveryDancingSaintEsteemCrushOrthodoxToesOrthodox ChristianVirginiaBaitVery TrueWaltzKnavery
Book:Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)
Create image

“In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other.”

WellsEnoughWholeAgeSocialSexFemaleAbsolutesSlaveryMajoritySlaveMalesThinkerCultivation
Book:The Subjection of Women: Mill's Works
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

“Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.”

PeopleKnowsWantMindWellsArtPleasureResultsSubjectsTasteIncreaseSlaveryChainsArtificialAmusement
Book:The Social Contract
Create image

“I should like to say that I left off smoking because I considered it a mean form of slavery, to be condemned for moral as well as physical reasons; but though I see the folly of smoking clearly now, I was blind to it for some months after I had smoked my last pipe. I gave up my most delightful solace, as I regarded it, for no other reason than that the lady who was willing to fling herself away on me said that I must choose between it and her.”

ShouldWellsMeanSaidReasonLastsFormLeftMoralWillingMonthsSlaveryBlindFollySmokingDelightfulPipeGave UpSolaceFling
Author:James M. Barrie
Create image

“The truth is that History, with its imposing capital H, is simply the amalgamation of many quotidian lives lived in very ordinary ways. History is always personal. If you read Holocaust survivor or American slavery survivor narratives, you realize all too well that these great Historical moments were personal to someone at some time.”

IfsWayWellsMomentsRealizingTruth IsOrdinarySlaveryHistoricalNarrativeSurvivorHolocaustImposingAmerican SlaveryHolocaust SurvivorAmalgamationGreat Historical
Author:Chris Abani
Create image

“Pain and pleasure are transitory; endure all dualities with calmness, while trying at the same time to remove their hold. Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill [...].The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery.”

MenTryingWellsRealityPainDesireSocialImaginationPleasureHealingDoorsDiseaseRootsPhilosophicalSlaveryEndureIllSicknessRemoveCalmnessDualityTransitoryPain And PleasureUnfulfilled Desires
Author:Sri Yukteswar Giri
Create image

“You pick up very well-known books on Lincoln [and] you will find almost no reference to his long-term belief in colonization. Why? Because it doesn't fit the image of the Great Emancipator. It doesn't fit the retrospective view we want to have of Lincoln as the man who was the moralist in politics, who came into office committed to ending slavery and waited to sign this document.”

MenWantWellsLongBookBeliefTermViewsKnownHe ManFitOfficePicksSlaveryCommittedLong TermDocumentsWell KnownColonizationMoralistRetrospectiveEnding Slavery
Author:Eric Foner
Create image

“Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole Republic, the dignity of the elective franchise, - all alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free.”

MindWellsStillsStatesWholeBodyHandsLeftJusticeHalfMillionsIgnoranceBrokenDemandDignityVoteSafetySlaveryWelfareRepublicEmancipationFreeman
Book:Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions: 1878-1886
Create image

“I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves, that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity and not to us. It is for them to decide therefore the moral and religious right of the slavery question for themselves within their own limits.”

PeopleMenWellsMatterStatesReligiousMoralRightsBearsLimitsConscienceConstitutionSlaverySettlingAbortionCivilizedPosterityMissouriReligious Rights
Author:Stephen A. Douglas
Create image

“In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.”

WellsMayTogetherRememberWaterTenLowsMouthsSightSlaverySlaveBoatBordersBoardsIronDozenTormentSteamTediousOhioLouisville
Book:Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45
Create image

“Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.”

IfsKnowsMindWellsDarkPracticeMeditationHonestMastersDisciplineEssentialsTrainingIllusionTasksSlaveryAddictionConfusionClarityBlissSubtleMeditation PracticeAdeptSuppleTime Patience
Book:Glimpse After Glimpse: Daily Reflections on Living and Dying
Create image

“And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”

MenWellsLooksChildrenMotherJesusWomenGriefHeardArmsBearsSlaveryAfrican AmericanBlack PeopleCriedStrong WomenLook At MeBlack WomenBlack HistoryThirteenLashesBarnsWomen StrengthPloughingWhiplashMud Puddles
Author:Sojourner Truth
Create image

“I wish most anxiously to see my much loved America - it is the Country from whence all reformations must originally spring - I despair of seeing an Abolition of the infernal trafic in Negroes - we must push that matter further on your side the water - I wish that a few well instructed Negroes could be sent among their Brethren in Bondage, for until they are enabled to take their own part nothing will be done.”

WellsCountryMatterDoneAmericaWishSidesWaterSeeingDespairSpringSlaveryBondageReformationYour SideBrethrenAbolition
Book:Thomas Paine: Collected Writings: Common Sense / The American Crisis / Rights of: (Library of America #76)
Create image

“It had been happy for me if I could have lived a private life in peace and plenty, enjoying all the happiness that results from a well-tempered society founded on mutual esteem. But the injury done my country, and the chains of slavery forging for all posterity, calls me forth to defend our common rights, and repel the bold invaders of the sons of freedom.”

IfsWellsCountryDoneEnjoyResultsCommonRightsSonSlaveryEsteemChainsPlentyIf I CouldInjuryMutualCall MePrivate LifePosterityInvadersForging
Author:Nathanael Greene
Create image

“While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a Single day.”

GivingYearsHumansWellsMeanTwoEndsHandsCoursesPrayerResultsProgressInfluenceThousandSlaveryFinalsAidsThousand YearsOur PrayersAbolition
Author:Robert E. Lee
Create image

“Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.”

IfsWellsMayLawJusticePoorRichMastersArmsLaborSlaveryForgottenPrivilegeDefinitionsStrikesGenerositySoilSentimentsWagesFreemanAbhorrent
Author:William C. Bryant
Create image

“The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizens; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party.”

PeopleWellsLongWarStatesGrowthPartyRightsCitizensElementsIncreaseSlaveryDefinedCivil WarSouthernPortionsAggressionThreatenedRapidsSystematicAgitationWantonConstitutional RightsRapid Growth
Author:Isham G. Harris
Create image

“The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer's money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to “help.””

WellsKindMadeWarHelpingGovernmentBlackPovertyEvidenceProgramSlaveryMovedSpendingDiscriminationAll KindsWelfareAssumptionSurvivedFederal GovernmentTaxpayersBlack Family
Author:Thomas Sowell
Create image

“It would be well for those interested to reflect whether there now exists, or ever has existed, a wealthy and civilized community in which one portion did not live on the labor of another; and whether the form in which slavery exists in the South is not but one modification of this universal condition... Let those who are interested remember that labor is the only source of wealth, and how small a portion of it, in all old and civilized countries, even the best governed, is left to those by whose labor wealth is created.”

WellsCountryWould BeRememberFormLeftCommunityWealthConditionsSourceLaborUniversalSlaverySouthWealthyCivilizedPortionsModification
Author:John C. Calhoun
Create image

“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?”

IfsWantShouldWellsPersonsDoeCareTenFairsTreatsSlaverySlaveDon't CareI Don't CareCommandmentsImmoralTen Commandments
Author:Mira Sorvino
Create image

“Not to discontinue our allegiance, in this case, would be to join with the sovereign in promoting the slavery and misery of that society, the welfare of which, we ourselves, as well as our sovereign, are indispensably obliged to secure and promote, as far as in us lies.”

WellsWould BeLyingCasesSlaveryMiserySecureWelfareDeceitSovereignPromotingObligedAllegiance
Book:Sermons: Seven Sermons: A Discourse, Concerning the Unlimited Submission and Non-resistance to the Higher Powers. The Snare Broken
Create image

“Adrian Rogers told us as often as he could he took the Bible literally. He illustrated by saying he believed the world was created in six 24-hour days. And he repeated this to make an impression upon us. In private (Jerry Vines was with us), I asked Rogers what he did with the slavery passages of the New Testament. Did he take them literally? He paused and said, 'Well, I believe slavery is a much-maligned institution. If we had slavery today, we would not have this welfare mess.'”

IfsWorldBelieveWellsSaidTodayI BelieveHoursSixInstitutionsSlaveryImpressionMessWelfarePassagesTestamentNew TestamentRogerJerryVinesSlavery Today
Author:Adrian Rogers
Create image