Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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 (1817–62) American Philosopher
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold;
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip, and the footsteps of fear.
—Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) American Abolitionist, Writer
Whatever makes man a slave takes half his worth away.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
There’re two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave.
—Nikki Giovanni (b.1943) American Poet, Writer, Activist, Educator
So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to the master—so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil—so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.
—George Washington (1732–99) American Head of State, Military Leader
There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits—and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
Slavery may, perhaps, be best compared to the infantile disease of measles; a complaint which so commonly attacks the young of humanity in their infancy, and when gone through at that period leaves behind it so few fatal marks; but which when it normally attacks the fully developed adult becomes one of the most virulent and toxic of diseases, often permanently poisoning the constitution where it does not end in death.
—Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) South African Writer, Feminist
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. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves; all men are born free, all have equal rights: never should we lose sight of those principles; according to which never may there be granted to one sex the legitimate right to lay monopolizing hands upon the other, and never may one of the sexes, or classes, arbitrarily possess the other.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.
—Billie Holiday (1915–59) American Jazz Singer
The creation of the spiritual was no accident. It was a creation born of necessity, so that the slave might more adequately adjust himself to the conditions of the New World.
—Benjamin Mays (1894–1984) American Minister, Educator, Scholar, Social Activist
Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
We can apply to slavery no worse name than its own. Men have always shrunk instinctively from this state, as the most degraded. No punishment, save death, has been more dreaded; and, to avoid it, death has often been endured. Slavery virtually dissolves the domestic relations. It ruptures the most sacred ties upon earth. It violates home. It lacerates best affections; produces and gives license to cruelty; compels the master systematically to degrade the mind of the slave; and to resist that improvement which is the design and end of the Creator.—Millions may rise up and tell me that the slave suffers little from cruelty. I know too much of human nature, human history, and human passion, to believe them.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
It is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.
—Alexander Hamilton (c.1757–1804) American Federalist Politician, Statesman
The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.
—Henry George (1839–97) American Political Economist, Journalist
Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man’s nature—opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Have the daring to stop doing the things you really don’t want to do. Can you see them? Look closely. Can you observe the many things you do because you reluctantly feel you should or must? Watch closely. Examine every action and reaction. Do you act naturally or do you act because you feel compelled? If you feel compelled, stop. Compulsion is slavery. Example: Refuse to go along with the crowd.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
Every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has a right to but himself.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author