1,063 Quotes About Slavery

The question also had an ominous spiritual dimension. To which God would they submit? There was the one proclaimed by the Baptists who said they could no longer serve two masters, and that freedom was a birthright. And then there was the one of the Church of England who commanded them to obey their masters and serve in thankfulness and humility.

[Sharpe's] only goal had been to make people free, he said, and what had been a peaceful movement had spun out of control. But he remained defiant to the end about the idealism of his cause, if not the means.'I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery!' he said. Belby reported that Sharpe's frame expanded, his spine stiffened, and his eyes seemed to 'shoot forth rays of light' when he said this.

The Jamaican violence had given humanitarians powerful evidence that the institution was costing Britain far more than it was giving back, and the humanitarians could now make extended pragmatic arguments as well as moral ones.

So what is slavery? I've already begun to suggest an answer in the last chapter. Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all social relationships that make one a human being. Another way to put this is that the slave is, in a very real sense, dead.

["...]I have learned what all who live in a land of slaver[y] must learn sooner or later; that is to process approbation where you cannot feel it; to be hard when most inclined to melt; and to say that all is right, and good; and true when you know that nothing could be more wrong and unjust.["]

Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic.

Slaves are men who did not take care of their future because if you neglect your future, you will be a slave to someone that did.

War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said. "Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?""Absol—well, okay." "Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?""All right, I'll grant you that, but—""Saving civilization from a horde of—" "It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together," said Fred Colon sharply. "Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?

There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing....