Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when...

But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says,...

…the heart has no tears to give,–it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in silence.

Treat ’em like dogs, and you’ll have dogs’ works and dogs’ actions. Treat ’em like men, and you’ll have men’s works.

Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and...

He says that there can be no high civilization without enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real. There must, he says, be a lower class, given up to physical toil and confined to an...

It takes years and maturity to make the discovery that the power of faith is nobler than the power of doubt; and that there is a celestial wisdom in the ingenuous propensity to trust, which...

Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!

For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one’s feelings, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities move on! Still we must eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again, – still...

They will raise, and raise with them their mother’s side.

In the midst of life we are in death,'” said Miss Ophelia.

Every nation that carries in its bosom great and unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion.

Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less...

Well,” said St. Clare, “suppose that something shoul bring down the price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a drug in the market, don’t you think we should soon have...

Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!

Liberty! — Electric word!

The longest way must have its close – the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning.

The benevolent gentleman is sorry; but, then, the thing happens every day! One sees girls and mothers crying at these sales, always! it can’t be helped, etc.; and he walks off, with his acquisition, in...

It was a feeling which he had seen before in his mother; but no chord within vibrated to it.

I tell you,” said Augustine, “if there is anything that revealed with the strength of a divine law in our times, it is that the masses are to rise, and the under class becomes the...

For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come short.

The sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome.

And though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, between two dim eternities,—the eternal past,...

Deeds of heroism are wrought here more than those of romance, when, defying torture, and braving death itself, the fugitive voluntarily threads his way back to the terrors and perils of that dark land, that...

Is there anything in it glorious and dear for a nation, that is not also glorious and dear for a man? What is freedom to a nation, but freedom to the individuals in it?

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed

«In my opinion, it is you considerate, humane men, that are responsible for all the brutality and outrage wrought by these wretches; because, if it were not for your sanction and influence, the whole system...

We ought to be free to meet and mingle, –to rise by our individual worth, without any consideration of caste or color; and they who deny us this right are false to their own professed...

Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chairs, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor – just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such...

It is with the oppressed, enslaved, African race that I cast in my lot; and if I wished anything, I would wish myself two shades darker, rather than one lighter.

«It’s true, Christian-like or not; and is about as Christian-like as most other things in the world,» said Alfred.

Soon after the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the...

There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and...

Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.

An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race.

Your Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration of the doctrine of transmitted instincts and peculiarities. His fathers were mighty hunters, – men who lived in the woods, and slept under the free,...

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

«Couldn’t never be nothin’ but a nigger, if I was ever so good,» said Topsy. «If I could be skinned, and come white, I’d try then.»

If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship, – a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul, – if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly...

One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from heaven, as the reason; but no,—they are condemned for not doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm.