Seneca the Younger Quotes

To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.

If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.

It was impossible to reason with a negro-that the only way to keep him in his place was to keep him under fear.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

Their authority over their slaves renders them vain and imperious.

Power abdicates only under stress of counter-power.

Power is being able to affect the hegemony of existing systems.

The natural course of power is to make the many slaves to the few.

Whether the institution to be defended is slavery, political absolutism, or the absolutism of the head of a family, we are always expected to judge of it from its best instances; and we are presented with pictures of loving exercise of authority on one side, loving submission to it on the other

Every organism, every human being, must conquer or serve.

In the beginning, all men were alike and they lived in peace and they shared among them what they had. But now there are two kinds of men, the master and the slave. But there are more of us than there are of you, many more. And we are stronger than you, better than you. All that is good in mankind belongs to us.

[My proposal is for] encouraging the negroes in that part of America to rise against their masters and for sending some regiments to support and encourage them in carrying the design into execution. The negroes would rise and embrue [soak] their hands in the blood of their masters.

The master is a slave when he fears those whom he rules.

I'm fed up with being bossed around.

It is one thing to own a woman, and it is another to have her within the bonds of an excellent mastery.

The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.

Authority is never without hate.

The great empire will be torn from limb, the all-powerful one for more than four-hundred years: Great power given to the dark one from slaves come.

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

Let tyrants shake their iron rod.

The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it.

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

It's going to be fun to watch and see how long the meek can keep the earth once they inherit it.