Slavery Quotes - Page 2

Slavery is not a horror safely confined to the past; it continues to exist throughout the world, even in developed countries like France and the United States. Across the world slaves work and sweat and build and suffer. Slaves in Pakistan may have made the shoes you are wearing and the carpet you stand on. Slaves in the Caribbean may have put sugar in your kitchen and toys in the hands of your children. In India they may have sewn the shirt on your back and polished the ring on your finger. They are paid nothing. Slaves touch your life indirectly as well. They made the bricks for the factory that made the TV you watch. In Brazil slaves made the charcoal that tempered the steel that made the springs in your car and the blade on your lawnmower. Slaves grew the rice that fed the woman that wove the lovely cloth you've put up as curtains. Your investment portfolio and your mutual fund pension own stock in companies using slave labor in the developing world. Slaves keep your costs low and returns on your investments high.

Kevin Bales

Often, men want money to get women, or to use women to get money, or both at the same time.

Bryant McGill

Antislavery idealists might prefer to live in some better world, which like all such places was too good to be true. The American nation in 1790, however, was a real world, laden with legacies like slavery, and therefore too true to be good.

Joseph J. Ellis

Only by acknowledging the full extent of slavery's full grip on U.S. Society - its intimate connections to present day wealth and power, the depth of its injury to black Americans, the shocking nearness in time of its true end - can we reconcile the paradoxes of current American life.

Douglas A. Blackmon

Marriage without love is just one more twisted form of slavery.

Margarita Engle

In every aspect and among almost every demographic, how American society digested and processed the long, dark chapter between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the civil rights movement has been delusion.

Douglas A. Blackmon

One could call a master a good master because he did not whip his slaves, but ultimately he was still and owner of men, and men were not made to be owned.

Nick Lake

I know of no evil that ever existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of seventy or eighty thousand persons every year from their own land.

William Pitt the Younger

The benevolent gentleman is sorry; but, then, the thing happens every day! One sees girls and mothers crying at these sales, always! it can't be helped, etc.; and he walks off, with his acquisition, in another direction.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you're not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you're forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others.

Fernando Pessoa

I ask no paradise on high, With cares on earth oppressed,The only heaven for which I sigh, Is rest, eternal rest.

Solomon Northup

You may have bought my body, you may even have the papers to prove it, but don't fool yourself into thinking for a moment that my heart and mind were included in the purchase.

Nenia Campbell

When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and crowned, I am amazed.

Robert G. Ingersoll

To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such.

Mark Twain

You Say To People 'Throw Off Your Chains' And They Make New Chains For Themselves?

Terry Pratchett

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 subjugation on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it: for man is an imitative animal.

Thomas Jefferson

A man is always a little shamefaced on his wedding day, like a fox caught in a baited trap, ensnared because his greed overcame his better judgment. The menfolk laughed at Charlie that spring day, and said he was caught for sure now. As the bride, I was praised and fussed over, as if I had won a prize or done something marvelous that no one ever did before, and I could not help feeling pleased and clever that I had managed to turn myself from an ordinary girl into a shining bride. Now I think it is a dirty lie. The man is the one who is winning the game that day, though they always pretend they are not, and the poor girl bride is led into a trap of hard work and harsh words, the ripping of childbirth and the drubbing of her man's fists. It is the end of being young, but no one tells her so. Instead they make over her, and tell her how lucky she is. I wonder do slaves get dressed up in finery on the day they are sold.

Sharyn McCrumb

As he plods behind Cameron and Summer, he can’t help but stare at Summer’s exposed, glistening skin. His thoughts aren’t depraved or even mildly in the splasher. In fact, he focuses on the marks of cruelty crisscrossing her back, stomach, and shoulders. He trudges along, drenched, feet swollen, constantly searching for even a hint of a breeze, all while being forced to stare at the alarming network of burns traversing Summer’s delicate skin. This latticework of hate reveals a brutal truth—one he can scarcely comprehend. Yes, he’s glimpsed and felt her scars before, but this is the first time he’s really, truly seen the severity and extent of her life as a slave. With each step, he must digest the monstrosities of her past, leaving him utterly devastated.

Laura Kreitzer

The slaves who were ourselves had known terror intimately, confused sunrise with pain, & accepted indifference as kindness.

Ntozake Shange

The “pursuit of happiness” is such a key element of the “American (ideological) dream” that one tends to forget the contingent origin of this phrase: “We holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Where did the somewhat awkward “pursuit of happiness” come from in this famous opening passage of the US Declaration of Independence? The origin of it is John Locke, who claimed that all men had the natural rights of life, liberty, and property— the latter was replaced by “the pursuit of happiness” during negotiations of the drafting of the Declaration, as a way to negate the black slaves’ right to property.

Slavoj Žižek

A freedom-fighter is a slave to freedom.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The light on her face was a lesson, a book that she hoped he would want to read, but he looked away from her...she did not want this man to leave her alone. He was kind. And she feared the loneliness of dreaming

Caryl Phillips

The old face, crinkled and dented with canals running every which way, pushed and shoved up against itself for a while, till a big old smile busted out from beneath 'em all, and his grey eyes fairly glowed. It was the first time I ever saw him smile free. A true smile. It was like looking at the face of God. And I knowed then, for the first time, that him being the person to lead the colored to freedom weren't no lunacy. It was something he knowed true inside him. I saw it clear for the first time. I knowed then, too, that he knowed what I was - from the very first.

James McBride

Most of us spend all our working life dreaming of doing nothing, then when we end up doing nothing, we long for something. When we have neither longing, I think that is what they call living for the moment.

Robert Black

When we came out of the cookhouse, we found the boy's father, the Indian man who had been grazing the horses in the pasture, waiting for us. He wanted someone to tell his troubles to. He looked about guardedly, afraid that the Señora might overhear him.'Take a look at me' he said. I don't even know how old I am. When I was young, the Señor brought me here. He promised to pay me and give me a plot of my own. 'Look at my clothes' he said, pointing to the patches covering his body. 'I can't remember how many years I've been wearing them. I have no others. I live in a mud hut with my wife and sons. They all work for the Señor like me. They don't go to school. They don't know how to read or write; they don't even speak Spanish. We work for the master, raise his cattle and work his fields. We only get rice and plantains to eat. Nobody takes care of us when we are sick. The women here have their babies in these filthy huts.''Why don't you eat meat or at least milk the cows?' I asked.'We aren't allowed to slaughter a cow. And the milk goes to the calves. We can't even have chicken or pork - only if an animal gets sick and dies. Once I raised a pig in my yard' he went on. 'She had a litter of three. When the Señor came back he told the foreman to shoot them. That's the only time we ever had good meat.''I don't mind working for the Señor but I want him to keep his promise. I want a piece of land of my own so I can grow rice and yucca and raise a few chickens and pigs. That's all.' 'Doesn't he pay you anything?' Kevin asked. 'He says he pays us but he uses our money to buy our food. We never get any cash. Kind sirs, maybe you can help me to persuade the master . Just one little plot is all I want. The master has land, much land.'We were shocked by his tale. Marcus took out a notebook and pen. 'What's his name?'. He wrote down the name. The man didn't know the address. He only knew that the Señor lived in La Paz.Marcus was infuriated. 'When I find the owner of the ranch, I'll spit right in his eye. What a lousy bastard! I mean, it's really incredible'. 'That's just the way things are,' Karl said. 'It's sad but there's nothing we can do about it.

Yossi Ghinsberg

Denial of climate change and degradation of environment for the purpose of economic prosperity is humiliation and slavery of the nature.

M.F. Moonzajer

What's the story here, Karl?' Kevin asked.'Hard as it is to believe, these people are slaves,' Karl explained.'Slaves?' I asked skeptically.'Well, you might not call them that but they are virtual slaves. They don't receive any pay. They are dealt with harshly. They don't have anywhere else to go''What about the government? Don't they help?' Marcus asked.'The government?' Karl laughed. 'The government my eye! Those generals stay in power several years, make a bundle smuggling drugs, and once they're millionaires, they retire. Some other lousy generals take over from them, and history repeats itself. You think they give a shit what happens to a few lousy Indians?

Yossi Ghinsberg

Earned money brings you security, borrowed money gets you slavery.

Amit Kalantri

No matter what chains are broken, slavery is a condition of the heart.

Marquita Burke-DeJesus

The use of rape and enslavement as weapons of war MUST END!

Widad Akreyi

For most of human history people owned other people. Then, only a hundred and fifty years ago, our ancestors figured out that was a bad idea. One day we’ll figure out, or our descendants will figure out, that people owning land they don’t live on or work is a bad idea too.

Dennis Vickers

The free worker receives a wage; the slave an education, food, care, clothing; the money that the master spends to keep the slave is drained little by little and in detail; one hardly perceives it.1

Alexis de Tocqueville

We are determined to answer evil with GOOD, slavery with FREEDOM, rape with hope!We are against slavery, rape, beheading, torture, violations of human rights, corruption and misuse of religion!

Widad Akreyi

The reformer," Douglass explained in 1883, had "a difficult and disagreeable task before him. He has to part with old friends; break away from the beaten paths of society, and advance against the vehement protests of the most sacred sentiments of the human heart.

James Oakes

They will raise, and raise with them their mother's side.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Out of slavery, freedom --yes, & roses from the pig's behind.

Kenneth Patchen

Men have enslaved each other since they invented gods to forgive them for doing it.

Seth Grahame-Smith

And they are ignorant that the purpose of the sword is to save every man from slavery.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus

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

Lalita Tademy

Then, somehow, I got caught up in one of Kevin's World War II books - a book of excerpts from the recollections of concentration camp survivors. Stories of beatings, starvation, filth, disease, torture, every possible degradation. As though the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred. ... Like the Nazis, antebellum whites had known quite a bit about torture - quite a bit more than I ever wanted to learn.

Octavia E. Butler

It is with the oppressed, enslaved, African race that I cast in my lot; and if I wished anything, I would wish myself two shades darker, rather than one lighter.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Career is just posh slavery.

Tom Hodgkinson

Strange as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of the poor slave's chains, almost commingled. A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol!

Solomon Northup

Well," said St. Clare, "suppose that something shoul bring down the price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a drug in the market, don't you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine? What flood of light would pour the church, all at once, and immediately it would be discovered that everything in the bible and reason went the other way.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free - never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something - traditions - conventions - ambitions - relations.

L.M. Montgomery

...A vision from a universe where the Equal Rights Amendment--with its redefinition of personhood--is rejected by the house of deputies: A universe where to die is to become property and to be created outwith a gift of parental DNA is to be doomed to slavery.

Charles Stross

they ask for water we give them seathey ask for bread we give them seathey ask for life we give them only the sea

M. NourbeSe Philip

I’m sorry to pull you out of your classes, but your adviser understands,” Kitteredge said. “He’s a friend of the family.”So that’s it, Neal thought. You bought me; you own me.

Don Winslow

Ain't we all been hurt by slavery?

Ernest J. Gaines

HIt is surely certain - as certain as one can be about any historical events - that the fall of New World slavery could not have occurred if there had been no abolitionist movements. We can thus end on a positive note of willed achievement, a century’s moral achievement that may have no parallel. It is an achievement, despite its many limitations, that should help inspire some confidence in other movements for social change, for not being condemned to fully accept the world into which we are born.

David Brion Davis

When sin ceases to pay, we have a happy knack of finding out that it is wrong; so after a bit, when Virginia, and Georgia and the Carolinas had ceased to belong to us, we began to denounce this trade in African flesh, and to denounce it in no stinted terms.

W. F. Butler

And hoops, like rings aflame set to jump through for a world fit for someone elseThe cold harsh feel of steel on skin, the unloved touch of an industry used to deprave all mankind of its creativity and cast us out as a solider of fortune. Working to build an empire of dirt until the grave of another unknown warrior lays dead and buried amongst the masses of a billion unknowns before him.

Morris R. Gates

The subject of British abolitionism has long been controversial, complex, and even baffling. It also raises the issue of moral progress in history - whether groups of reformers and even nations can succeed in eliminating deeply entrenched forms of human oppression, and if so, by what methods, misconceptions, and under what conditions?

David Brion Davis

As a people, we have been tolled farther and farther away from the facts of what we have done by the romanticizers, whose bait is nothing more than the wishful insinuation that we have done no harm. Speaking a public language of propaganda, uninfluenced by the real content of our history which we know only in a deep and guarded privacy, we are still in the throes of the paradox of the “gentleman and soldier.” However conscious it may have been, there is no doubt in my mind that all this moral and verbal obfuscation is intentional. Nor do I doubt that its purpose is to shelter us from the moral anguish implicit in our racism—an anguish that began, deep and mute, in the minds of Christian democratic freedom-loving owners of slaves.

Wendell Berry

I will follow anyone... And tell everyone...How grateful I am...To the Western nations.

Widad Akreyi

Thus the word "inhuman", in this book's title, refers to the unconscionable and unsuccessful goal of bestializing (in the form of pets as well as beasts of burden) a class of human beings.

David Brion Davis

What matters is that Southern slaves, at least on the larger plantations, created their own African American culture, which helped to preserve some of the more crucial areas of life and thought from white control or domination without significantly reducing the productivity and profitability of slave labor. Living within this African American culture, sustained by strong community ties, many slaves were able to maintain a certain sense of apartness, of pride, and of independent identity.

David Brion Davis

What matters is that Southern slaves, at least on the larger plantations, created their own AfricanAmerican culture, which helped to preserve some of the more crucial areas of life and thought from white control or domination without significantlyreducing the productivity and profitability of slave labor. Living within this African American culture, sustained by strong community ties, many slaves were able to maintain a certain sense of apartness, of pride, and of independent identity.

David Brion Davis

My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!

Frederick Douglass

Much as slavery in the United States was part of a larger Atlantic Slave System, so America’s War of Independence was an outgrowth of Europe’s Seven Years’ War — from 1756 to 1763 — and also a precursor or harbinger of the French and Haitian revolutions and of the subsequent Latin American wars for independence from Spain.

David Brion Davis

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Slavery Quotes - Page 2

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