Slavery Then And Now Quotes & Sayings

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We weren't taught judgment or shame. We were taught history the way it's taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: "There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done." It was the same for us. "Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let's move on. — Trevor Noah

Your thoughts and your actions are fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. I, on the other hand, brought you freedom. Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible. So, fear your captors, your masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing me. — Carlos Castaneda

I can understand the poor and stupid voting for Marxism or one of its fashionable variants. If you've no hope of being other than a slave, you may as well opt for the most efficient form of slavery. — P.D. James

Mary! Mary! My dear, let me reason with you.
I hate reasoning, John, - especially reasoning on such subjects. There's a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing; and you don't believe in it yourselves, when it comes to practice. I know you well enough, John. You don't believe it's right any more than I do; and you wouldn't do it any sooner than I. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

Deeds of heroism are wrought here more than those of romance, when, defying torture, and braving death itself, the fugitive voluntarily threads his way back to the terrors and perils of that dark land, that he may bring out his sister, or mother, or wife. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

Slavery is not African history. Slavery interrupted African history. — Mutabaruka

That was when I realized we weren't born to be
slaves. It was ignorant for any man to think he could be the master of another. We were all meant to be free, and somewhere there were good people helping to heal this broken world. — Jay Grewal

From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience is the only virtue which slaves can still practice. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The self-deception of slave owners and proponents of slavery is well documented by the historians Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in their book Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South. Slavery was not perceived by most slaveholders in the nineteenth century to be an exploitation of humans by other humans for economic gain; instead, slaveholders painted a portrait of slavery as a paternalistic and benign institution in which the slaves themselves were seen as not so different from all laborers - black and white - who toiled everywhere in both free and slave states; further, the South's "Christian slavery" was claimed to be superior. — Michael Shermer

I can not but hate the prospect of slavery's expansion. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity. — Abraham Lincoln

Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The empirical fact is that self-actualizing people, our best experiencers, are also our most compassionate, our great improvers and reformers of society, our most effective fighters against injustice, inequality, slavery, cruelty, exploitation (and also are best fighters for excellence, effectiveness, competence). And it also becomes clearer and clearer that our best 'helpers' are the most fully human persons. What I may call the bodhisattvic path is an integration of self-improvement and social zeal, i.e., the best way to become a better 'helper' is to become a better person. But one necessary aspect of becoming a better person is via helping other people. So one must and can do both simultaneously. — Abraham H. Maslow

If you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter
you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life. — Joycelyn Elders

I add my oath of protection to the bone,' he said in a whisper. 'To you now and to any child you may bear in the future. I would trade no day I spend with you for a life of safe slavery. I accepted the post of Seeker of my own free will. And if Darken Rahl takes the whole world into madness, then we will die with a sword in our hands, not chains on our wings. We will not allow it to be easy for them to kill us; they will pay a high price. We will fight with our last breath if need be, and in our death, let us inflict a wound on him that will fester until it claims him. — Terry Goodkind

Saying slavery was the cause of secession isn't politically correct; it's correct correct. — Larry Wilmore

Telling people they don't have a sin nature doesn't promote sin anymore than telling a slave they are free promotes slavery. — D.R. Silva

Greek women were not allowed to be: free and untamed. In fact, Artemis is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, her commitment to purity must have been greatly admired by Ancient Greeks; yet she is also untamable and answers to no man. She is truly the eternal wild child who never has to grow up and shoulder the responsibilities that adulthood brings. She never has to compromise herself or conform to any of society's standards. No wonder she is associated with the moon - completely untouchable, forever unattainable. If offered the option of becoming one of Artemis' immortal maidens, freed forever from the shackles of marriage or slavery, I think many Ancient Greek women would have jumped on that bandwagon as it careened past — Rick Riordan

If the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence, as self-evident truths, are real truths, the existence of slavery, in any form, is a wrong. — John Quincy Adams

The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain! — Robert A. Heinlein

I do not think I was a hothead - not then and not now. I thought I was right. I had read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. Segregation seemed evil from the time I was a boy. Slavery is an abomination on the American soul, ineradicable stain on our body politic. But Penn Center lit a fire that has never gone out, and the election of President Barack Obama was one of the happiest days of my life. — Pat Conroy

We can believe in hierarchy. We can believe the universe was made just for us. Hierarchy and a major sense of entitlement are not insurmountable problems. The problem occurs when we treat those whom we believe lie beneath us as slaves. Religion once sustained human slavery. It was wrong then. When it blindly sanctions the slavery of every nonhuman animal, it is wrong now. — Cass R. Sunstein

I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom. "Buy a car," it says, "and be free. Buy a boat and be free." Is this not the raw material of bad dreams? Or is it maybe the very nightmare itself? — Wendell Berry

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves — Abraham Lincoln

Grant began by expressing a hope that the war would soon be over, and Lee replied by stating that he had for some time been anxious to stop the further effusion of blood, and he trusted that everything would now be done to restore harmony and conciliate the people of the South. He said the emancipation of the Negroes would be no hindrance to the restoring of relations between the two sections of the country, as it would probably not be the desire of the majority of the Southern people to restore slavery then, even if the question were left open to them. — Horace Porter

Just one more line, please. I'll do anything. And I mean anything."
"Good, we've got him hooked," said Ryan. "It won't be long now before he's on heroin."
Josie added, "Then it's just slavery, pedophilia, and murder."
"Don't forget incest," said Flora. — Aiden Shaw

How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality. — Wendell Phillips

Many heroic things happened during slavery. And remember that there was a national movement away from it even at the time. The era of Reconstruction and then the subsequent dismantling of Reconstruction sent us in a tailspin. Then we had the Civil Rights movement. Now we have our first non-white president. We have a pattern of moving apart and then coming back together throughout the history of this country. Each time, we come closer. — Wynton Marsalis

[I]f we could imagine a world without slavery and abolish that institution, then we can face the troubles we have now ... Who was it that imagined a world where the Nazis could be defeated?There were those who looked upon that war machine and said: this can and must be destroyed.That resistance ... began with an act of the imagination. Resistance begins with the imagination. — Tony Leuzzi

He was as bold as a lion about it, and 'mightily convinced' not only himself, but everybody that heard him; - but then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word, - or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle, with "Ran away from the subscriber" under it. The magic of the real presence of distress, - the imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony, - these he had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenseless child, - like that one which was now wearing his lost boy's little well-known cap; and so, as our poor senator was not stone or steel, - as he was a man, and a downright noble-hearted one, too, - he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case for his patriotism. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

We are a free people; and now you have planted in our country the title deeds of our future slavery. You are neither god nor demon; who are you, then, to make slaves? Orou! You understand the language of these men, tell us all, as you have told me, what they have written on this sheet of metal: This country is ours. This country yours? And why? Because you have walked thereon? If a Tahitian landed one day on your shores, and scratched on one of your rocks or on the bark of your trees: This country belongs to the people of Tahiti - what would you think? — Denis Diderot

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

I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war. — Abraham Lincoln

No matter how kind her mistress is, - no matter how much she loves her home; beg her not to go back, - for slavery always ends in misery. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. — Charles De Secondat

Stephens resumed speaking as the crowd quieted. He referred to one final "improvement" the Confederate Constitution had introduced, a brief but crucial clause that banned forever any "bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves." "The new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions - African slavery as it exists among us - the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization." This question, Stephens baldly admitted, "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."20 Stephens then referenced — Don H. Doyle

When we deny our pain, losses, and feelings year after year, we become less and less human. We transform slowly into empty shells with smiley faces painted on them. Sad to say, that is the fruit of much of our discipleship in our churches. But when I began to allow myself to feel a wider range of emotions, including sadness, depression, fear, and anger, a revolution in my spirituality was unleashed. I soon realized that a failure to appreciate the biblical place of feelings within our larger Christian lives has done extensive damage, keeping free people in Christ in slavery. — Peter Scazzero

The history of American democracy, to say the least, has been checkered. Our nation was founded at a time when people of African descent were held in bondage. After slavery was abolished, they were forced to endure legal discrimination for another 100 years. — Bernie Sanders

Have there ever been more submissive slaves? Adoring, even in their irons, the God who punishes them. — Jean Racine

The core of the culture is racism and how black men are viewed. They've always been demonized and seen as threats in our culture. Another holdover from slavery. We've got to deal with that core root of racism and demonization of the upbringing of black men. Black women are not exempt by any means. — Marian Wright Edelman

Thompson's message was straightforward: if God through divine revelation so clearly sanctioned slavery, and even the trade in "strangers," how could genuine Christians attack modern slavery, or even the slave trade, as an evil? — Mark A. Noll

14Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise h partook of the same things, that i through death he might j destroy k the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and deliver all those who l through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he m helps the offspring of Abraham. 17Therefore he had n to be made like his brothers in every respect, o so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest p in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18For because he himself has suffered q when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. — Anonymous

Owing money was the beginning of slavery ... a creditor was worse than a boss, for a boss only owns your person but a creditor owns your dignity and can slap it around. — Victor Hugo

Oh! how heavily the weight of slavery pressed upon me then. I must toil day after day, endure abuse and taunts and scoffs, sleep on the hard ground, live on the coarsest fare, and not only this, but live the slave of a blood-seeking wretch, of whom I must stand henceforth in continued fear and dread. — Solomon Northup

Insofar as we may at all claim that slavery has been abolished today, we owe its abolition to the practical consequences of science — Albert Einstein

Slaves, slaves to anything or anyone, despite how much they abhor it, will often cling to that slavery out of fear the alternative would be insufferable. — Terry Goodkind

Look at me
I am the life in a wasteland
Look at me
I am the slavery through the ages
Look at me
I am the mirror of the world
Look at me
I am the illusion I've fought for
Look at me
I'm still loving you
and I keep being here
for you, for me,
and for what's worth breathing — Rixa White

I am amazed at the facility with which some men follow in the wake of slavery. — Benjamin F. Wade

Even I am growing accustomed to slavery; so much so that I cease to think of its accursed influence and calmly eat from the hands of the bondman without being mindful that he is such. O, Slavery, hateful thing that thou art thus to blunt the keen edge of conscience! — Susan B. Anthony

Instead of Passover pointing backward to the great sacrifice by which God had rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, this meal pointed forward to the great sacrifice by which God was to rescue his people from their ultimate slavery, from death itself and all that contributed to it (evil, corruption, and sin). This would be the real Exodus, the real "return from exile." This would be the establishment of the "new covenant" spoken of by Jeremiah (31:31). This would be the means by which "sins would be forgiven" - in other words, the means by which God would deal with the sin that had caused Israel's exile and shame and, beyond that, the sin because of which the whole world was under the power of death. — N. T. Wright

I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers: are you willing to enslave your children? You stare back with horror and indignation at such questions. But why, if slavery is not wrong to those upon whom it is imposed? — Angelina Grimke

There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. — Robert E.Lee

I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedom. — Kailash Satyarthi

The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed ... Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union. — Otto Von Bismarck

If Lincoln's primary goal in the War was not the abolition of slavery but simply to preserve the Union, the question arises: Why did the Union need preserving? Or, more pointedly, why did the Southern states want to secede? — G. Edward Griffin

Am I not a man and brother? — Josiah Wedgwood

Something must happen; that is the reason for most human relationships. Something must happen; even servitude in love, in war, ordeath. — Albert Camus

Detention turned out to be code for slavery. — Jus Accardo