Top 1200 Slavery Quotes & Sayings

Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence.

Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery.

The Confederate flag was the flag of the American South during the civil war. It was the flag of people who were fighting against their own government in an attempt to retain slavery. It was the flag of people who thought slavery was no problem, who thought slavery was a good thing.

The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom.

All official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery.

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.

Slavery had very little to do with the economic success of the West. Just look at the facts and figures and how much slavery actually contributed to development.

Although it has been fashionable to deny it, anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the decline of Rome and were accompanied by the eventual disappearance of slavery in all but the fringes of Christian Europe. When Europeans subsequently instituted slavery in the New World, they did so over strenuous papal opposition, a fact that was conveniently 'lost' from history until recently. Finally, the abolition of New World slavery was initiated and achieved by Christian activists.

Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.

Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away.

The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.

[...] it is generally accepted that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. That, at best, is a half-truth. Slavery was an issue, but the primary force for war was a clash between the economic interests of the North and the South. Even the issue of slavery itself was based on economics.

The argument that capitalism was dependent on slavery is, of course, not new. In 1944, Eric Williams, in 'Capitalism and Slavery,' made the case.

It is troubling that modern slavery is a crime that can be hidden in the supply chains of the goods and services we use every day. The uncomfortable reality is that the money we spend could be driving demand for slavery across the globe.

There are three ways in which a man becomes a slave. He may be born into slavery, or forced into it, or he can deliberately accept his servitude. All three forms flourish in the modern world. Men are born and forced into slavery in Russia and her satellites states. Men in the free world invite slavery when they ask the government to provide complete security, when they surrender their freedom to the "Welfare State."

In the era of slavery, you could be a so-called Afro-Cuban one day and a so-called Black American the next day, or vice versa. I mean there was all this back and forth, and there was a lot of opposition in Black America to slavery in Cuba in particular, because slavery in Cuba lasted until the 1880s.

I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.

The way animals are carted around reminds me of the slavery of my people... The slavery of animals has to be ended too.

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.

We believe slavery was abolished with Abraham Lincoln; unfortunately, human slavery is alive and well.

Slavery, you know, is nothing else than the unwilling labor of many. Therefore to get rid of slavery it is necessary that people should not wish to profit by the forced labor of others and should consider it a sin and a shame. But they go and abolish the external form of slavery and arrange so that one can no longer buy and sell slaves, and they imagine and assure themselves that slavery no longer exists, and do not see or wish to see that it does, because people still want and consider it good and right to exploit the labor of others.

The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented . . . no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.

Slavery is what slavery's always been: About one person controlling another person using violence and then exploiting them economically, paying them nothing. That's what slavery's about

Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.

The greatest evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude but rather the narrative of racial differences we created to legitimate slavery. Because we never dealt with that evil, I don't think slavery ended in 1865, it just evolved.

We still have slavery of all kinds - slavery of thought, slavery of ideas, slavery of cultureand I think 'Roots' exemplifies, in a very strong way, man's need to think for himself, feel for himself, do for himself.

I think comedy allows people to accept the more difficult parts of history. And history, if it's presented wrong, is just very depressing, particularly the history of slavery. If slavery is presented properly, it's a great story. But I think that within the commercial world of storytelling in which I live, there haven't been many strong works that discuss slavery in ways that are palatable and funny and interesting to the reader.

We call 'Slavery is wrong' a moral truth because there is a specific history of theoretical investigation of a particular kind of slavery. We discussed it for centuries in metaphysical, economic, biological, and philosophical terms; we listened to all the arguments pro and con, we read all the testimonies of slaves and witnesses, and we decided. Though this 'we" is not everybody on earth, or even most people, who've never thought about slavery much.

What was distinctively Western was not slavery but the moral crusade to end slavery.

If the flag of an armed enemy of the U.S. is allowed to fly over government buildings, then it implies that slavery, or at least the threat of slavery, is sanctioned by that government and can still legally exist.

I'm so sick and tired of hearing about slavery. You think slavery didn't exist in Africa? Even Indian tribes.

Mental slavery is worst than physical slavery

Think about it: we went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.

Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. Do not go from the slavery of the Communist regime to the slavery of consumerism.

However you disguise slavery, it is slavery still. Its chains, though wreathed with roses, not only fasten on the body but rivet on the mind.

'Slavery by Another Name' is an important book that I think all Americans should read, about how, following the end of slavery, a new system of racial and social control was born, known as 'convict leasing.'

Before slavery, Africa had a culture. We had medicine and our cure for malaria. Slavery brought diseases that we were not used to; slavery brought industry and people were criticizing industry way back as 2,000 years ago, that it was going to pollute the air, sea. Industry is not the way. We must deal with nature.

The wealthy have never liked to pay for the labor that enriches them. Ever since slavery was eliminated, they have been trying to keep it as close to slavery as they can without violating the slave laws.

There are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.

Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the tea and coffee and other slop-kettle, if, unhappily, you have been bred up in such slavery.

In terms of America, I think any profound consideration is bound to return us to the notion of twins because, though you certainly can contend there are many Americas, our history has been binary from the beginning, with its hairline fracture down the country's center between what American has wanted to be and what America has been. That fracture is slavery, of course. To some extent it's still slavery, in that collectively we refuse to come to grips with the American fact of slavery.

The Israelites' slavery in Egypt is the equivalent of our slavery to sin. God sent Moses to deliver them from bondage, and He sent Jesus Christ to set us free.

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.

We in Africa are always on the receiving end. We have had human slavery, political slavery, economic slavery and now religious slavery. We in the church are saying no. We are prepared to live by what God says, not what you say. Man shall not sleep with man, woman shall not sleep with woman.

The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States.

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.

We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel.

Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy.

Slavery in West Africa, and in Rome and in the Mediterranean, was something different than slavery in America.

Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?

The choice people have to make is never between slavery and freedom. We will always have to choose between slavery and the unknown.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.

Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery - did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.

Slavery holds few men fast; the greater number hold fast their slavery.

As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. … Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance.

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.

Specialization is in fact only a fancy form of slavery wherein the 'expert' is fooled into accepting a slavery by making him feel that he in turn is a socially and culturally preferred-ergo, highly secure-lifelong position.

These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched. Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery - in fact, its only enemy.

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.