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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom. "Buy a car," it says, "and be free. Buy a boat and be free." Is this not the raw material of bad dreams? Or is it maybe the very nightmare itself?”

PeopleThinkingWayGivingDoeDreamWould BeForcePayPrinciplesEconomyCarMaterialsPromiseIllusionSlaverySlaveBoatNightmareGoodsConsumerismHumaneBack AgainOverconsumptionRaw MaterialsBad Dream
Book:Jayber Crow: A Novel
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“What the working man sells is not directly his Labor, but his Laboring Power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. This is so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Law, but certainly by some Continental Laws, the maximum time is fixed for which a man is allowed to sell his laboring power. If allowed to do so for any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example, would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.”

IfsKnowsMenWould BeLawWorkCasesExamplePeriodsLaborSlaverySellsSlaveLifetimeFixedTemporaryCapitalistMaximumEmployersLifelongWorking ManContinentalEnglish Law
Book:German socialist philosophy
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“The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace - the handcuff, the last - the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives - the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labor of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart - these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather that the exception, in the slave's experience.”

MindHeartChildrenBodyRealityWould BeLastsFormParentDifficultImaginationCommonWifeHusbandDespairLaborSlaveryMiserySlaveDetailsNewspapersInsultSicknessDescriptionExceptionSouthernWearyHighwaysScornExceedMenaceAdvertisementsFugitiveParent ChildDerisionHusband Wife
Book:Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839
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“Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods. It would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

IfsKnowsShouldSoulWould BeEarthHeavenCasesKnow HowStrangeExpressionTaxesArmySlaveryBoundsTyrannyBritainGoodsArticlesUnlimitedCelestial
Book:The Political Writings of Thomas Paine: To which is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author's Life
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“The presence of the blacks is the greatest evil that threatens the United States. They increase, in the Gulf States, faster than do the whites. They cannot be kept for ever in slavery, since the tendencies of the modern world run strongly the other way. They cannot be absorbed into the white population, for the whites will not intermarry with them, not even in the North where they have been free for two generations. Once freed, they would be more dangerous than now, because they would not long submit to be debarred from political rights. A terrible struggle would ensue.”

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Author:James Bryce
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“To abolish a status, which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West-Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated.”

MenCountryStatesWould BeAgeClassSubjectsFellowsSlaveryPropertyWestExtremesCrueltyTreatmentPassagesPortionsIntroducingSavagesBondageAbolishMassacresRobberyWest Indies
Book:The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
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“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.”

PeopleIfsFeelsPersonsWarWould BePainSufferingDiesStreetsSixDestructionSlaveryPrisonKillingBreastsThroatSecondsStarvationThat One PersonBowels
Author:Julian Beck
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“I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character.”

IfsFirstsHas BeensCountryCharacterFeelingsWould BeNationsOpinionProudHigherEnglandElectionSlaverySlaveLeavingRisingAlteredAbolishAlterations
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)
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“Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of authority, then we would be more open to slavery, to the subjugation of women, to wider use of stoning. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against divorce in the strongest of terms.”

IfsUseWould BeJesusTermLevelsAuthoritySlaveryDivorceScriptureInstanceSpokesStrongestBiblicalSubjugationUnapologetic
Author:Jon Meacham
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“I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.”

MenBelieveHumansHas BeensWould BeAmericaJoyI BelieveBlackFreedomDarknessImpossibleSlaveryPrisonAppreciationIgnorantAnguishMudSweetestHuman Society
Author:Malcolm X
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“Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin... Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and, with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again... Take this great power away from them and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in... But, if you want to continue to be a slave of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers continue to create money and control credit.”

IfsWorldWantEnoughWould BeEarthBornSinMoneyPayLibertyEconomicMinesOughtCostEconomicsSlaveryFortuneSlaveCreditDisappearPensBankingBankersBack AgainGreat PowerBe A SlaveCentral BanksIniquity
Author:Josiah Stamp
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“Grant began by expressing a hope that the war would soon be over, and Lee replied by stating that he had for some time been anxious to stop the further effusion of blood, and he trusted that everything would now be done to restore harmony and conciliate the people of the South. He said the emancipation of the Negroes would be no hindrance to the restoring of relations between the two sections of the country, as it would probably not be the desire of the majority of the Southern people to restore slavery then, even if the question were left open to them.”

PeopleIfsSaidTwoWarCountryDoneWould BeDesireLeftBloodRelationHarmonySlaveryMajoritySouthCivil WarGrantsSouthernAnxiousTrustedSectionsEmancipationRestoringHindrance
Author:Horace Porter
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“If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.”

IfsMenHas BeensMadeFeelingsGovernmentWould BeTogetherLibertyGreaterRightsDegreesSlaveryBillsNeighborContraryRidiculousPreservationBill Of Rights
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
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“Many Southern Plantation owners were working towards the day when they could convert their investment to more profitable industrial production as had been done in the North, and others felt that freemen who were paid wages would be more efficient than slaves who had no incentive to work. For the present, however, they were stuck with the system they inherited. They felt that a complete and sudden abolition of slavery with no transition period would destroy their economy and leave many of the former slaves to starve - all of which actually happened in due course.”

WarDoneWould BeCoursesFeltEconomyHappenedPeriodsPaidSlaverySlaveInvestmentProductionsDuesStuckFormerCivil WarOwnersTransitionSouthernEfficientWagesIncentivesProfitableAbolitionFreemanPlantationsAbolition Of Slavery
Author:G. Edward Griffin
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“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.”

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Author:John C. Calhoun
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“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
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“Whoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed. He has had the benefit of every heroic and intellectual effort men have made for many thousands of years, realized at last. If Americans should now turn back, submit again to slavery, it would be a betrayal so base the human race might better perish.”

IfsMenShouldYearsHumansMadeEnoughMightWould BeLastsTurnsEffortRaceCitizensBenefitsIntellectualSlaveryBetrayalEnjoyedFortunateHuman RaceHeroicSubmitInheritanceAmerican Citizens
Author:Isabel Paterson
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“In most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children.”

MenMayChildrenCountryStatesWould BeAgeIndividualDifficultNaturalLibertyImagineImpossibleConditionsCrimeEqualOriginalsSlaveryViolentCompulsionDoubtedForfeit
Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
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“We do not by any means think it desirable that the kingdom of righteousness and peace should be established on earth (because under any circumstances it would be the kingdom of the profoundest mediocrity and Chinaism); we rejoice in all men, who like ourselves love danger, war and adventure, who do not make compromises, nor let themselves be captured, conciliated and stunted; we count ourselves among the conquerors; we ponder over the need of a new order of things, even of a new slavery for every strengthening and elevation of the type "man" also involves a new form of slavery.”

ThinkingMenNeedsShouldMeanWarWould BeEarthFormOrderDangerAdventureTypeSelf LoveCircumstancesSlaveryCharityKingdomsCompromiseRighteousnessMediocrityRejoicePhilanthropySelflessnessDesirableCapturedPonderingConquerorStrengtheningElevationDisinterest
Book:The Joyful Wisdom
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