Slavery

Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his masters 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

The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility. – Georges Bataille

Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds. – Pearl Buck

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil. – Edmund Burke

Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one. – Miguel de Cervantes

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

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

It cannot in the opinion of His Majestys Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude. – Sir Winston Churchill

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

Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a strangers treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enrolld me, minds are never to be sold. – William Cowper

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum? – William Cowper

The art of being a slave is to rule ones master. – Diogenes

The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable. – Andrea Dworkin

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave. – Wayne Dyer

Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire. – Anwar El-Sadat

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

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Therere two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave. – Nikki Giovanni

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

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