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

Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.
~ Pearl S. 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

It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.
~ 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 F. Cooper

Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll'd 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 one's master.
~ Diogenes of Sinope

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

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

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
~ Vincent Van Gogh

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
~ Patrick Henry

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

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.
~ Billie Holiday

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
~ Thomas Jefferson