Slavery Quotes
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As one southern-born antislavery activist later wrote, it was a “sad satire to call the States ‘United,’” because in one-half of the country slavery was basic to its way of life while in the other it was fading or already gone. The founding fathers tried to stitch these two nations together with no idea how long the stitching would hold.
Andrew Delbanco
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I don't want to give too much lugubrious thought to the gravitas of a coherent album. I don't want to develop a life of slavery to a large topic. I want to throw out some singles and that's what I'm doing, and they're not to be done in any other way.
Van Dyke Parks
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Copying is slavery. The letter must never be followed, only the spirit is to be grasped. Higher affirmations live in the spirit. And where is the spirit? Seek it in your everyday experience, and therein lies abundance of proof for all you need.
D. T. Suzuki
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Slavery will not be overthrown without excitement, a most tremendous excitement.
William Lloyd Garrison
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A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I'm saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.
Lysander Spooner
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I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word 'obey' in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.
W. H. Auden
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If the British public were shown slavery in their own society seen through the eyes of the enslaved, they would get a much better understanding.
Hilary Beckles
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The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
John Ruskin
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The Spanish Civil War, Britain was not involved in it. Going back a bit, there was the naval blockade to stop the slave trade in the 19th century; that was morally just. Shame they didn't bother to abolish slavery at the same time.
Jeremy Corbyn
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I think only now am I at the age where I've forgiven the past enough to say, 'You know what? Slavery was there. Let's talk about it in ways that will help us face tomorrow.
James McBride
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The Democratic Party is the - was the largest and most powerful institution supporting slavery in the English-speaking world. And it is the only one that has survived to the 21st century!
Sean Hannity
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Slavery is the most insane thing... I don't know that we've ever seen in history, but it's got to be close. The idea of slavery is such a base impulse. It's like, "I'm going to kidnap you and then you're going to do everything I want." Like, what? And then there's the historical aspect. It had a huge effect on human history.
Neal Brennan
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We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.
William H. Seward
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The Soul of man is made an article of merchandize by his fellow man and can such a land be happy? No! Happyness does not dwell in any land that is scard by the blighting curse of Slavery.
Ezra Cornell
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Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery? Because certain things happened in the Constitution that had to change.
Whoopi Goldberg
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Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
William Cowper
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I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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If we were to drive out the English with the weapons with which they enslaved us, our slavery would still be with us even when they have gone.
Mahatma Gandhi
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How ridiculous! You're going to have the first black president apologize for slavery?
Mark Steyn
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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
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I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
William Cowper
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Slavery is a memory of something we cannot remember, and yet we cannot forget.
Bill T. Jones