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Slavery Quotes

Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and James Madison have the most entries. The page is not one-sided: George Fitzhugh, a proslavery writer, is fourth, so the arguments made at the time are on the record next to the condemnations. The sourced lines worth reading in full are Madison’s letters, to Lafayette in 1821, calling slavery a sad blot on our free country, and to F. Corbin in 1820. Goethe’s Elective Affinities (1809) is here for the opposite sort of remark: none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Three lines are flagged. One credited to Edward R. Murrow, “We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them,” is marked misattributed. A line about freeing thousands more if they had known they were slaves, credited to Harriet Tubman, and a passage addressed “To Americans” credited to Thomas Paine are disputed.

Random quote on Slavery

Most quoted on slavery:

It acknowledges the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery

John Conyers

I have dedicated my life’s work to excavating the modern legacy of transatlantic slavery

Nikole Hannah-Jones UN speech (2022)

And if an AI is a conscious being, forcing it to serve us would be akin to slavery

Susan Schneider

A continent that emerged from slavery, colonialism, and all of these other isms should better understand what oppression means

Sibongile Ndashe

The problem with slavery is not why people are forced to become slaves, but why they allow themselves to be enslaved. p. 67

Alexander Zinoviev Confessions of a Too Much Man (1990)

It was remarked in England that women did much to abolish slavery in her colonies. Nor are they now idle.

Angelina Grimké Speech at Pennsylvania Hall (1838)

Now I know the signs of an abuser and a trafficker. If I had known the signs, I wouldn’t have fallen a victim or stayed in slavery for two years.

Bukola Oriola

Vanity is the new modern day slavery

Siddharth Katragadda Life: A collection of Inspirational Quotes (2020)

I wrote this for all African people- All African people struggling with identity, post-colonialism, colonialism, after effects of slavery

Barolong Seboni

Ending slavery depends on what we do.

Urmila Bhoola

Dominus virtutum
Has gathered together those that were in slavery,
And before I existed He had perceived me.

Taliesin Book of Taliesin (1275)

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.

Abraham Lincoln Illinois House Journal (1837)

Slavery was not genocide otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or Britain would there? An awful lot of them survived.

David Starkey

I was mainly thinking about my family and thinking about slavery, and it was kind of dark.

Ryan Cosbert

It establishes a commission to study slavery, its subsequent racial and economic discrimination against freed slaves

John Conyers

We still have slavery in the world today. and two of the areas pinpointed for slavery are Latin America, notably Brazil, and Eastern Asia.

Nell Irvin Painter Interview with NPR (2010)

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.

J. K. Rowling

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling. (p183)

Octavia Butler Kindred (1979)

Lincoln thought slavery was wrong and he did not think a vote of the people could make it right.

Harry V. Jaffa Interview with Peter Robinson (2009)

history of human slavery spawned environmental racism in the United States.

Beverly Wright

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