Slavery Quotes

• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Patriotic

  Letter to Henry L. Pierce and Others, 6 Apr. 1859

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• There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Freedom, Equality, America

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville. Chapter III, Part I, 1835.

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• Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Escaping, Desire, Chains

  Jean Jacques Rousseau (2015). “The Social Contract”, p.88, Jean Jacques Rousseau

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• 

  Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Music, Song

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

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• The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Thinking, Made

  Thomas Paine, Bruce Kuklick (2000). “Paine: Political Writings”, p.162, Cambridge University Press

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• Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Strong, Freedom

  Speech to 140th Indiana regiment, 17 Mar. 1865

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• War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

  George Orwell

  Strength, Peace, Freedom

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

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• I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

  Frederick Douglass

  Found, Wanted, Be A Slave

  "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave". Book by Frederick Douglass, 1845.

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• A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Believe, Fall, Government

  Speech at Republican state convention nominating him to run for U.S. senator, Springfield, Ill., 16 June 1858

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• 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

  Kevin Bales

  Violence, Persons

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• Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Equality, Individual

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• ...nothing on earth can stop man from feeling himself born for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can he accept servitude; for he is a thinking creature.

  Simone Weil

  Acceptance, Men, Thinking

  Simone Weil (2013). “Oppression and Liberty”, p.79, Routledge

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• Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of slavery.

  James Madison

  Evil, Political, Opinion

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828”, p.193

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• [Slavery] is a weed that grows in every soil.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspirational, Weed, Marijuana

  "The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds".

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• Human beings are not property. On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts so that the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - 'no one shall be held in slavery or servitude' - ring true.

  Kofi Annan

  Children, Men, Rights

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• No more slave States and no more slave territory.

  Salmon P. Chase

  Territory, Slave, States

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (Resolutions Adopted at the Free-Soil National Convention), 1922.

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• Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Monkeys, Institutions

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.295, Harvard University Press

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• I would rather be a rebel than a slave.

  Emmeline Pankhurst

  Independent Women, Rebel, Suffragists

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• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Believe, Struggle

  Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 Aug. 1862

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• If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

  Wayne Dyer

  Spiritual, Self Improvement, Obligation

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• None but ourselves can free our minds.

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

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• It surprises people that there's actually a very large number of slaves in the world today-our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we're not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we're talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.

  Kevin Bales

  Talking, Numbers, People

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• It's as if all identity has been stolen from them, except their identity as slaves.

  Kevin Bales

  Identity, Stolen, Has Beens

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• For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

  Jonathan Swift

  Government, Definitions, Reason

  The Drapier's Letters no. 4 (1724)

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• I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Slave, Slavery Freedom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

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