When my babe was born, they said it was premature. It weighed only four pounds; but God let it live.

When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died.

Lives that flash in sunshine, and lives that are born in tears, receive their hue from circumstances.

The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.

There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious.

I was ordered to go for flowers, that my mistress's house might be decorated for an evening party. I spent the day gathering flowers and weaving them into festoons, while the dead body of my father was lying within a mile of me. What cared my owners for that? he was merely a piece of property. Moreover, they thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were human beings. This was blasphemous doctrine for a slave to teach; presumptuous in him, and dangerous to the masters.

My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each.