Quotes about Slavery

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.”

“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.”

“The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.”

“Forced from home and all its pleasures Afric's coast I left forlorn, To increase a stranger's treasures O'er the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold; But, though slave they have enrolled me, Minds are never to be sold.”

“Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too ''personal'' style.”

“Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.”

“The art of being a slave is to rule one's master.”

“Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.”

“Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.”

“Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.”

“Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.”

“If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.”

“The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.”

“Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.”

“The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.”

“I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?”

“Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.”

“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.”

“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

“Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire.”

“Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.”

“Today the large organization is lord and master, and most of its employees have been desensitized much as were the medieval peasants who never knew they were serfs.”

“It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.”

“The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.”

“The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.”

“Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel.”

“Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others.”

“To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs -- a dog exercising a somewhat similar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days.”

“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. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.”