Servitude Quotes - Page 4

• DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Sarcastic, Clouds, Silver

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.58, University of Georgia Press

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• The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.

  Isabelle Eberhardt

  Animal, Law, Horizon

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• Christ preaches only servitude and dependence... True Christians are made to be slaves.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Christian, Religion, Atheism

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G. D. H. Cole (2003). “On the Social Contract”, p.95, Courier Corporation

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• There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Character, Men

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• One has freedom as the principal means of action; the other has servitude. Their . . . paths [are] diverse; nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mean, Destiny, Hands

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville (originally published 1835-1840), translated by George Lawrence, vol. 1, part 2, Conclusion, final paragraphs, p. 412-413, 1969.

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• The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Independent, Men, Overcoming

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.332, Penguin

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• We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children of Africa, as the sons and daughters of kings and queens, and thereby ignore the Middle Passage and centuries of enforced servitude in the Americas. Although some of us might indeed be the descendants of African royalty, most of us are probably descendants of their subjects, the daughters and sons of African peasants or workers.

  Angela Davis

  Daughter, Queens, Kings

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• My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.

  Jefferson Davis

  Strong, Book, Law

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• The will to domination is a ravenous beast. There are never enough warm bodies to satiate its monstrous hunger. Once alive, this beast grows and grows, feeding on all the life around it, scouring the earth to find new sources of nourishment. This beast lives in each man who battens on female servitude.

  Andrea Dworkin

  War, Men, Female

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• By deriving it's just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute money or property nor to force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by the people. No individual possesses the power to take another's wealth or to force others to do good, so no government has the the right to do such things either. The creature cannot exceed the creator.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Government, People, Defense

  Ezra Taft Benson (1986). “The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner”, Shadow Mountain

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• Thus the woman, who had perversely exceeded her proper bounds, is forced back to her own position. She had, indeed, previously been subject to her husband, but that was a liberal and gentle subjection; now, however, she is cast into servitude.

  John Calvin

  Husband, Gentle, Casts

  John Calvin (2012). “John Calvin's Commentaries On Genesis 1-23 (Annotated Edition)”, p.135, Jazzybee Verlag

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• How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Freedom, Men

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• Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Men

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2018). “History of Florence and the Affairs of Italy”, p.115, Ozymandias Press

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• The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Facts, Realizing, Chains

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• Where it is in his own interest, every organism may reasonably be expected to aid his fellows. Where he has no alternative, he submits to the yoke of communal servitude. Yet given a full chance to act in his own interest, nothing but expediency will restrain him from brutalizing, from maiming, from murdering his brother, his mate, his parent, or his child. Scratch an 'altruist' and watch a 'hypocrite' bleed.

  Michael Ghiselin

  Brother, Children, Hypocrite

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• The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wisdom, Men, Principles

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.412

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• By its attempt to regulate and govern the private businesses, which are miscalled public accommodations in the bill, this proposal would inject the Government into the most sensitive areas of human contractual relations-agreements for personal services. In so doing, constitutional interpretations of long standing are being swept aside in favor of tortuous rationalizations which studiously ignore the constitutionally-forbidden imposition of involuntary servitude on citizens

  Strom Thurmond

  Agreement, Government, Long

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• Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions - whether of sex, race, or servitude.

  Adrienne Rich

  Sex, Race, Speak

  Adrienne Rich (1976). “Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution”

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• Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Inspirational, Facts, Oppression

  Statement to the Argentine Society of Letters, 1946.

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• ...heroine: the artist, the premier mistress writhering in a garden graced w/highly polished blades of grass... release (ethiopium) is the drug...an animal howl says it all...notes pour into the caste of freedom...the freedom to be intense...to defy social order and break the slow kill monotony of censorship. to break from the long bonds of servitude-ruthless adoration of the celestial shepherd. let us celebrate our own flesh-to embrace not ones race mais the marathon-to never let go of the fiery sadness called desire.

  Patti Smith

  Letting Go, Sadness, Garden

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• The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Men, Race

  Address on Unified Cooperation in Europe, delivered 19 September 1946, Zurich, Switzerland

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• The heart becomes sick, as the body becomes sick, and its remedy is al-Tawbah (repentance) and protection [from transgression]. It becomes rusty as a mirror becomes rusty, and its clarity is obtained by remembrance. It becomes naked as the body becomes naked, and its beautification is al-Taqwa. It becomes hungry and thirsty as the body becomes hungry, and its food and drink are knowledge, love, dependence, repentance and servitude.

  Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

  Wisdom, Islamic, Heart

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• I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word 'obey' in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Marriage, Thinking, Gentleman

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2016). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton: As Revealed in Her Letters & Diary (Abridged)”, p.169, BIG BYTE BOOKS

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• Why is acquiescence to the numerous viewed as better servitude than bowing to might?

  William J. Murray

  Democracy, Acquiescence, Might

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• I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader - or any person - in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

  Alice Walker

  Past, Race, Talking

  "Obama is the change that America has tried to hide" by Alice Walker, www.theguardian.com. March 31, 2008.

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