Harriet Ann Jacobs

“When a man is hunted like a wild beast he becomes ferocious.”

“The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.”

“Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence?”

“Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage.”

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

“There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.”

“I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.”

“No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death.”

“But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely!”

“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.”

“Whatever slavery might do to me, it could not shackle my children.”

“Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”

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

“I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.”

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.”

“I wanted to keep myself pure; and I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery.”

“It is a sad feeling to be afraid of one's native country.”

“Strange that the sinner should be humbled, and the sinned against prosecuted!”