SLAVERY QUOTES IV

quotations about slavery

There is an alacrity in a consciousness of freedom, and a gloomy, sullen insolence in a consciousness of slavery.

OWEN FELTHAM

attributed, Day's Collacon


A slave is but half a man.

ARISTOPHANES

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Aristophanes


Better freedom with a crust, than slavery with every luxury.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: Christian Nestell Bovee


Slavery is a continual and permanent violation of human rights.

DANIEL WEBSTER

letter to Rev. Mr. Furness, February 15, 1850

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Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

The American Democrat

Tags: James Fenimore Cooper


At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.

AYN RAND

Anthem

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The turpitude, the inhumanity, the cruelty, and the infamy of the African commerce in slaves have been so impressively represented to the public by the highest powers of eloquence that nothing that I can say would increase the just odium in which it is and ought to be held. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.

JOHN ADAMS

letter to T. Robert J. Evans, June 8, 1819

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In ancient times, as to-day in Asia and Africa, slaves were simply called slaves. In the Middle Ages, they took the name of "serfs", to-day they are called "wage-earners".

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Marxism, Freedom and the State

Tags: Mikhail Bakunin


Do you, do you remember those days of slavery?
It wasn't black man alone, who died thru bravery.
'Though some a dem threw dem self over board,
because dis ya slaveship overload.

EEK-A-MOUSE

"Do You Remember"


War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

GEORGE ORWELL

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Tags: George Orwell


Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.... I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

journal, December 4, 1860

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But there's no such thing as free. There are only different and more horrible ways to be enslaved.

LAUREN DESTEFANO

Fever


It seemed to me much more than the mere question whether the negro should remain in slavery; that it really involved the question whether liberty should be strangled on the continent dedicated to liberty.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Reminiscences

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X is not my real name, but if you study history you'll find why no black man in the western hemisphere knows his real name. Some of his ancestors kidnapped our ancestors from Africa, and took us into the western hemisphere and sold us there. And our names were stripped from us and so today we don't know who we really are. I am one of those who admit it and so I just put X up there to keep from wearing his name.

MALCOLM X

Oxford Union Debate, December 3, 1964


The man born and bred a slave, even if freed, never loses wholly the feeling or manner of a slave.

MARY CLEMMER AMES

Outlines of Men, Women, and Things

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If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable -- and this is why we are the enemies of the State.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

"Statism and Anarchy"

Tags: Mikhail Bakunin


Let every voice be thunder, let every heart beat strong
Until all tyrants perish our work shall not be done
Let not our memories fail us the lost year shall be found
Let slavery's chains be broken the whole wide world around.

PETER, PAUL & MARY

"Because All Men Are Brothers"


They keep on talking, they're oh so proud
They keep us walking, they scream so loud
They own the venue, they own he crowd
Hey, yeah, slavery

RICHIE HAVENS

"Fates"


There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782


It is the mind of man alone that is the cause of his bondage or freedom.

CHANAKYA

Vridda-Chanakya

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