#slave

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#believe #enslaved #falsely #free #hopelessly

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

#any #common #condition #dynamics #each

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! ↗

— Patrick Henry

#almighty god #chains #course #dear #death

If it be not a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is indeed folly to put ourselves to any trouble and expense in order to free them. ↗

— Samuel Hopkins

#bondage #expense #flagrant #folly #free

We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception. ↗

— Vernon Howard

#conscious #consciously #enslaved #freed #perception

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. ↗

— William Ralph Inge

#animal #badly #beyond #cousins #creation

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#educational #gradations #methods #parents #selfishness

The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery. ↗

— Lajos Kossuth

#common #constitution #country #deprive #deprived

If there be any plausible reason for supposing that we have the right to legislate on the slave interests of the District, you cannot put down the investigation of the subject out of doors, by refusing to receive petitions. ↗

— Caleb Cushing

#cannot #district #doors #down #interests

The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. it opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. in moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. ↗

— Frederick Douglass

#frederick-douglass #reading #slavery #education