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 is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I cannot be fired. Slaves have to be sold.
—Unknown
If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
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
Progress and reaction have both turned out to be swindles. Seemingly, there is nothing left but quietism—robbing reality of its terrors by simply submitting to it.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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
I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
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 submission on the other. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. The hour of emancipation must come; but whether it will be brought on by the generous energies of our own minds, or by the bloody scenes of St. Domingo, is a leaf of our history not yet turned over. The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French Essayist, Intellectual
Slavery is contrary to the fundamental law of all societies.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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
Here lies the evil of slavery: Its whips, imprisonments, and even the horrors of the middle passage, are not to be named, in comparison with the extinction of the proper consciousness of a human being—with the degradation of a man into a brute.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
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 blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
It is observed by Homer that a man loses half his virtue the day he becomes a slave; he might have added, with truth, that he is likely to lose more than half when he becomes a slave-master.
—Richard Whately (1787–1863) English Philosopher, Theologian
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
Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights 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
Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
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
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
To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs—a dog exercising a somewhat similar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
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
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Whatever makes man a slave takes half his worth away.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
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
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
Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire.
—Anwar el-Sadat (1918–81) Egyptian Head of State, Political leader
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
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
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
Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
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
It does not matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have cut thongs for it out of your own souls.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
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
Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger’s treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll’d me, minds are never to be sold.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
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
My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Englishmen will never be slaves; they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright