William Faulkner Quotes

Slavery was not a bad day on the job. It was not your boss yelling at you. It was not hard work for little pay. This was a full system of human subjugation.

I am a firm believer in slavery.

The white man is a devil. If he is not a devil, let him prove it!

If you read the story of slavery and see the part that the Uncle Tom played in the plantation, and then you see how the white man today has changed his tactics, but he still occupies the same position, in that same context you find Uncle Tom. He has changed his tactics but he still occupies the same position.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

Notwithstanding my grandmother's long and faithful service to her owners, not one of her children escaped the auction block. These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

People can be slave-ships in shoes.

To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.

Africa suffered under European dominance for centuries.

Race is not particularly interesting to me. Power is. Who has power and who doesn't. Slavery interests me because it's an incredible violation that has not stopped. It's necessary to talk about that. Race is a diversion.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn't want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

Call someone your lord and he'll sell you in the slave market.

The whites tell us of their enlightened understanding, and the wisdom they have from heaven, at the same time, they cheat us to their hearts’ content. For we are as fools in their eyes, and they say among themselves, the Indians know nothing!

Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the degraded condition, both bodily and mental, of these unfortunate beings [slaves], few minds have yet doubted that they were as legitimate subjects of property as their horses or cattle

For people who have been slaves for 150 years doing all the work to be called lazy and shiftless by the man who was sitting on the porch—that is a phenomenon in itself.

The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty, but to have a slave of his own.

This is about slavery.

That’s a slave talking.

Slavery is the cause of treason and sustains it everywhere it exists.

I can say with truth mine is a situation of dignified slavery.