Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about slavery

52 quotes from 23 people

Most readBy personPage 2 of 4

I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Chapter XIn context
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Chapter XIn context
- Freedom
From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the Portion, It is still the Birthright of all men.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Petition from the Pennsylvania Society (1790)
- Liberty
I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Diary (8 June 1881)
I believe the slave trade to be by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind in any Christian or pagan country.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Speech in the House of Commons (19 March 1850)
The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Conclusion
- War & Peace
The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Second Inaugural Address (1873)
- Race
We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Conversation with Otto von Bismarck, Berlin (June 1878), as recorded in John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (1879), vol. 1, p. 416
He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
Augustine of Hippo354–430
- Freedom
- Virtue
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826On slavery, in a letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826A Summary View of the Rights of British America (July 1774)
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968
- Race
I think it’s insulting to people who have a heritage of slavery to compare the homosexual experience in America to that. It’s an unfortunate, cheap attempt to piggyback on something and to co-opt life experiences of others, claim that you’ve experienced them yourselves so that you can advance a cause.
Rush Limbaugh1951–2021
- Race
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865A House Divided (1858)
- America
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Definition of Democracy; see Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 532
- Democracy