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
Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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
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
I cannot be fired. Slaves have to be sold.
—Unknown
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
There’re two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave.
—Nikki Giovanni (1943–2024) American Poet, Activist, Professor
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
Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.
—Maria Weston Chapman (1806–85) American Abolitionist
Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
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, Activist, Scholar
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
Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) 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
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
Slavery is contrary to the fundamental law of all societies.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
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
Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
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
That execrable sum of all villainies commonly called the slave-trade.
—John Wesley (1703–91) British Methodist Leader, Preacher, Theologian
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
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
Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek 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
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
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
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
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