quotations about slavery
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. 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 submissions on the other.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782
A slave is but half a man.
ARISTOPHANES
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
But there's no such thing as free. There are only different and more horrible ways to be enslaved.
LAUREN DESTEFANO
Fever
I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to John Francis Mercer, September 9, 1786
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
If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable -- and this is why we are the enemies of the State.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"Statism and Anarchy"
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
Jaws of greed shine of green salivate
Force feed until gums bleed in slavery
Bottled trapped lifeless meat
Are you the leasher or the one being leashed?
HIS HERO IS GONE
"Leash"
Slavery is an infringement of two laws -- of Divine law which proclaims the equality of human nature before God, and of human law which declares an equality of political rights.
ALBERT BRISBANE
Social Destiny of Man
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
GEORGE ORWELL
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Whenever a slave shall enter Hawaiian territory, he shall be free.
KAMEHAMEHA V
attributed, Day's Collacon
Willingly no one chooses the yoke of slavery.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
Ye men of sense and virtue -- Ye advocates for American liberty, rouse up and espouse the cause of humanity and general liberty. Bear a testimony against a vice which degrades human nature, and dissolves that universal tie of benevolence which should connect all the children of men together in one great family -- The plant of liberty is of so tender a nature, that it cannot thrive long in the neighbourhood of slavery.
BENJAMIN RUSH
"On Slavekeeping", 1773
Imprisoned with the pharaohs, i notice no race predominates, but slavery's still the norm, sarcophagus, sarcophagus, sarcophagus,flesh-consumers of the great house
RUDIMENTARY PENI
"Sarcophagus"
In ancient times, as to-day in Asia and Africa, slaves were simply called slaves. In the Middle Ages, they took the name of "serfs", to-day they are called "wage-earners".
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Marxism, Freedom and the State
Servants to mother machine
Nursed by video screens
Paradise of insanity
Born into a grave of
Mental slavery
KREATOR
"Mental Slavery"
Slavery is a continual and permanent violation of human rights.
DANIEL WEBSTER
letter to Rev. Mr. Furness, February 15, 1850
Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.... I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
journal, December 4, 1860
It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man's slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass