Slavery Quotes

Not in government or force, not in slavery or war, but in the creative, and thereby spiritual, power of freedom, shall our inspiration be found.

I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery.

In the nineteenth century, slavery was the greatest wrong, and government never stood so tall as when it was redressing that wrong.

It seems almost incredible that the advocates of liberty should conceive of the idea of selling a fellow creature to slavery.

Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.

Marriage is but slavery made to appear civilized.

A man who feels that his religion is a slavery has not begun to comprehend the real nature of religion.

We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught.

People are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.

For sheer drama, few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northup's tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement.

The enemies of American civilization-- for such are the enemies of slavery-- seem to be more on the alert than its friends.

Inner slavery is even worse than outward slavery; and inner freedom is even better than outward freedom.

I felt the exultancy of a man just released from slavery and ready to set the universe on fire.

The tools to crush modern slavery exist, but the political will is lacking.

Excessive liberty leads both nations and individuals into excessive slavery. [Lat., Nimia libertas et populis et privatis in nimiam servitutem cadit.]

Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?

You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it.

Every time that a people which has long crouched in slavery and ignorance is moved to its lowest depths there appear monsters and heroes, prodigies of crime and prodigies of virtue.

The freedom to kill is not a true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces human beings to slavery.

If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.

I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.

Culture of dependency leads to a life of slavery, being totally dependent upon government. And government dictates where they go in life.

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

Good kings are slaves, and their people are free.

Racism had grown out of slavery and exploitation and was very hard to eradicate quickly and completely.

It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.

The Civil War was started over economic issues, not slavery. The War was not popular in the North until the issue of slavery was added at a later time to turn it into a moral crusade.

Slave rebellions, especially the [1791] Haitian Revolution, had an ongoing effect on the ways in which abolitionists talked about ending slavery.

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.

Slavery is malignantly aristocratic.

And that heart which was a wild garden was given to him who only loved trim lawns. And the imbecile carried the princess into slavery.

If you think your lot in life has been hard read “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington, and you may see how fortunate you have been.

This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms.

I read "Up From Slavery" and then my dream - if I may so call it - of being a race leader dawned.

It's the new slavery. It came out of the drug laws and it really is something we're going to have to confront, but I don't see enough people up in arms about that. We need to be.

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.

Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.

We must face the ultimate contradiction that our free and democratic society was made possible by massive slave labor.

Progress without the reasoned freedom to think and act is regression to slavery.

This was the face of slavery. To have nothing, and still have something more to lose.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it.

Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.

Formerly when a man worked ten hours a day, it was called economic slavery; nowadays it is called moonlighting.

TRUTH: When a child believes he must win to be worthy, when young adults define themselves by what they do and not who they are, it is a kind of slavery a slave master would envy.

The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.

To make your life being a writer, it's an auto-slavery ... you are both the slave and the task-master.