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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl QUOTES

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl QUOTES

1 " There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

2 " Many of the slaves believe such stories, and think it is not worth while to exchange slavery for such a hard kind of freedom. It is difficult to persuade such that freedom could make them useful men, and enable them to protect their wives and children. If those heathen in our Christian land had as much teaching as some Hindoos, they would think otherwise. They would know that liberty is more valuable than life. They would begin to understand their own capabilities, and exert themselves to become men and women. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

3 " But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

4 " Ah, if he had ever been a slave he would have known how difficult it was to trust white men. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

5 " Ah, if he had ever been a slave he would have known how difficult it was to trust a white man. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

6 " The brightest skies are always foreshadowed by dark clouds "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

7 " Friend! It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling; but when I speak of Mrs. Bruce as my friend, the word is sacred. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

8 " I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

9 " There I sat, in that great city, guiltless of crime, yet not daring to worship God in any of the churches. I heard the bells ringing for afternoon service, and, with contemptuous sarcasm, I said, "Will the preachers take for their text, 'Proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound'? or will they preach from the text, 'Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you'? "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

10 " Jeder Mensch erduldet Jahr für Jahr zu viele Sünden und zu viel Leid, aber in der Sklaverei wird auch schon das erste Licht, das man bei seiner Ankunft in der Welt erblickt, von finsteren Schatten verdunkelt. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

11 " I reminded him of the poverty and hardships he must encounter among strangers. I told him he might be caught and brought back; and that was terrible to think of.

He grew vexed, and asked if poverty and hardships with freedom, were not preferable to our treatment in slavery. "Linda," he continued, "we are dogs here; foot-balls, cattle, every thing that's mean. No, I will not stay. Let them bring me back. We don't die but once. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

12 " It is a sad feeling to be afraid of one's native country. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

13 " Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows. Even the little child, who is accustomed to wait on her mistress and her children, will learn, before she is twelve years old, why it is that her mistress hates such and such a one among the slaves. Perhaps the child's own mother is among those hated ones. She listens to violent outbreaks of jealous passion, and cannot help understanding what is the cause. She will become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master's footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child. If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

14 " I have myself known two southern wives who exhorted their husbands to free those slaves towards whom they stood in a "parental relation;" and their request was granted. These husbands blushed before the superior nobleness of their wives' natures. Though they had only counseled them to do that which was their duty to do, it commanded their respect, and rendered their conduct more exemplary. Concealment was at an end, and confidence took the place of distrust. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

15 " But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is. Only by experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

16 " I cannot say, with truth, that the news of my old master's death softened my feelings towards him. There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury. The man was odious to me while he lived, and his memory is odious now. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

17 " The degradation, the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery, are more than I can describe. They are greater than you would willingly believe. Surely, if you credited one half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions suffering in the cruel bondage, you at the north would not help to tighten the yoke. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

18 " I 'spose free boys can get along here at the north as well as white boys."

I did not like to tell the sanguine, happy little fellow how much he was mistaken. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

19 " Thus far I had outwitted him, and I triumphed over it. Who can blame slaves for being cunning? They are constantly compelled to resort to it. It is the only weapon of the weak and oppressed against the strength of their tyrants. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

20 " I was too familiar with slavery not to know that promises made to slaves, though with kind intentions, and sincere at the time, depend on many contingencies for their fulfillment. "

― Harriet Ann Jacobs , Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl