My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on m...e, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked him to give me a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an' down the land, showin' the people their sins, an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterward I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare Truth to the people.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him, but will... pick and cavil, and tell the odious truth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I fairly confess that, acting as nature and simplicity dictated, no sooner did I see the once loved bosom of my Ferdinand free fro...m those deformed demons which had crept in and filled up the vacant space, than beholding my natural home once more the seat of innocence and truth, my heart joyfully danced into its delightful abode.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Education at school continues what has been done at home: it crystallizes the optical illusion, consolidates it with book learning..., theoretically legitimizes the traditional trash and trains the children to know without understanding and to accept denominations for definitions. Astray in his conceptions, entangled in words, man loses the flair for truth, the taste for nature. What a powerful intellect must you possess, to be suspicious of this moral carbon dioxide and with your head swimming already, to hurl yourself out of it into the fresh air, with which, into the bargain, everyone round is trying to scare you!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; to the sympathies of our nature; in fine, to our character as a people, both ...abroad and at home, that they should be considered, as much as possible, in the light of human beings, and not as mere property.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended,... from abroad.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,--mere Jonathans. We are provinc...ial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At breakfast this Saturday morning, the Indian ... asked me how I spent the Sunday when at home. I told him that I commonly sat in... my chamber reading, etc., in the forenoon, and went to walk in the afternoon. At which he shook his head and said, "Er, that is ver bad." "How do you spend it?" I asked? He said that he did no work, that he went to church at Oldtown when he was at home; in short, he did as he had been taught by the whites. This led to a discussion in which I found myself in the minority. He stated that he was a Protestant, and asked me if I was. I did not at first know what to say, but I thought that I could answer with truth, that I was.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine... than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »