quotations about slavery
During ten or fifteen years I had been, as it were, dragging a heavy chain which no strength of mine could break; I was not only a slave, but a slave for life. I might become a husband, a father, an aged man, but through all, from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave, I had felt myself doomed. All efforts I had previously made to secure my freedom had not only failed, but had seemed only to rivet my fetters the more firmly, and to render my escape more difficult. Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at times asked myself the question, May not my condition after all be God's work, and ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not submission my duty? A contest had in fact been going on in my mind for a long time, between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible make-shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject slave--a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression in which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled me to manly endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
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"My Escape from Slavery", The Century Illustrated Magazine, November 1881
Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of power to pronounce the syllable, "No." To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character.
SEBASTIEN ROCH NICOLAS CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
Colonel Lloyd's slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
He got his fat dreams, he got his slaves
He got his profits, he owns our cage,
He has his prisons, he has his gates
He has his judges, they have our fate
RICHIE HAVENS
"Fates"
It is the mind of man alone that is the cause of his bondage or freedom.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
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
In proportion as slavery prevails in a State, the Government, however democratic in name, must be aristocratic in fact. The power lies in a part instead of the whole; in the hands of property, not of numbers.
JAMES MADISON
Notes for Essays
But there's no such thing as free. There are only different and more horrible ways to be enslaved.
LAUREN DESTEFANO
Fever
All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into slaves and freemen; for whoever has not two-thirds of his day for himself is a slave, be he otherwise whatever he likes, statesman, merchant, official, or scholar.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Complete Works: The First Complete and Authorised English Translation, Volume 6
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"
Gluttonized foundation
Well versed in the art of slavery
Patrons of feudal interest
Scurry around a concrete beehive
Crazed civilization frantically going nowhere
DISCORDANCE AXIS
"Empire"
I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. ... And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.
CHARLES DARWIN
The Voyage of the Beagle
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
GEORGE ORWELL
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation of Divine law, and a degradation of human nature.
JACQUES-PIERRE BRISSOT DE WARVILLE
New Travels in the United States of America, Performed in 1788
Whenever a slave shall enter Hawaiian territory, he shall be free.
KAMEHAMEHA V
attributed, Day's Collacon
Long ago mama Eve, our good old mother Eve, partook of the forbidden fruit, and this made a slave of her. Adam hated very much to have her taken out of the garden of Eden, and now our old daddy says I believe I will eat of the fruit and become a slave too. This was the first introduction of slavery upon this earth; and there has been not a son or daughter of Adam from that day to this but what were slaves in the true sense of the word. That slavery will continue, until there is a people raised up upon the face of the earth who will contend for righteous principles, who will not only believe in but operate, with every power and faculty given to them to help to establish the kingdom of God, to overcome the devil, and drive him from the earth, then will this curse be removed.
BRIGHAM YOUNG
speech in Joint Session of the Legislature, February 5, 1852
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
PATRICK HENRY
Speech at the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775
Within a few years past, the subject of slavery has been repeatedly discussed, in the legislature of this state, with great force of reasoning, and eloquence. The injustice of it has been generally, if not uniformly acknowledged; and the practice of it severely reprobated. But, when the question of total abolition has been seriously put, it has met with steady opposition, and has hitherto miscarried, on the ground of political expediency--That is, it is confessed to be morally wrong, to subject any class of our fellow creatures to the evils of slavery; but asserted to be politically right, to keep them in such subjugation.
THEODORE DWIGHT
an oration before the Connecticut Society, 1794
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"
People don't buy products--they buy people. It's called slavery. I mean networking. It's called networking.
JAROD KINTZ
This Book Is Not For Sale