Sojourner Truth quotes
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“Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I am not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : Sojourner Truth, “Ain't I A Woman?”
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“Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I feel safe in the midst of my enemies, for the truth is all powerful and will prevail.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : Ernest J. Gaines, Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, Pete Seeger (2000). “The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and related readings”
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“Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
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“Because of them I can now live the dream. I am the seed of the free, and I know it. I intend to bear great fruit.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : "Sojourner Truth: A Self-made Woman". Book by Victoria Ortiz, 1974.
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“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : "Ain't I A Woman?". Sojourner Truth's speech at the Women's Rights Convention at Old Stone Church in Akron, Ohio, www.nps.gov. May 29, 1851.
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“You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : Ernest J. Gaines, Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, Pete Seeger (2000). “The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and related readings”
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“Let ... individuals make the most of what God has given them, have their neighbors do the same, and then do all they can to serve each other. There is no use in one man, or one nation, to try to do or be everything. It is a good thing to be dependent on each other for something, it makes us civil and peaceable.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“What we give to the poor, we lend to the Lord.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : Sojourner Truth (1998). “Narrative of Sojourner Truth”, p.88, Penguin
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“I don't read such small stuff as letters, I read men and nations. I can see through a millstone, though I can't see through a spelling-book. What a narrow idea a reading qualification is for a voter!”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I have done a great deal of work, as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. I used to work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler; but men doing no more, got twice as much pay.... We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I must sojourn once to the ballot-box before I die. I hear the ballot-box is a beautiful glass globe, so you can see all the votesas they go in. Now, the first time I vote I'll see if the woman's vote looks any different from the rest--if it makes any stir or commotion. If it don't inside, it need not outside.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
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“I did not run away, I walked away by daylight….”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“Where there is so much racket, there must be something out of kilter”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?”
-- Sojourner Truth -
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“We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“If my cup won't hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I can do as much work as any man ... We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. What we want is a little money. You men know that you get as much again as women when you write, or for what you do. When we get our rights, we shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough of our own.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“The rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : Sojourner Truth, Olive Gilbert (2007). “Narrative of Sojourner Truth: Literary Touchstone Classic”, p.92, Prestwick House Inc
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“I am above eighty years old ... I suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for the rights of the colored women. I want to keep the thing stirring, now that the ice is cracked.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring. Because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I am above eighty years old; it is about time for me to be going. I have been forty years a slave and forty years free and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : Sojourner Truth (1999). “Book of Life”, X-Pr
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“Oh no, honey, I can’t read little things like letters. I read big things like men.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
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“When I left the house of bondage I left everything behind. I wasn't going to keep nothing of Egypt on me, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked him to give me a new name. And he gave me Sojourner because I was to travel up and down the land showing the people their sins and bein' a sign unto them. I told the Lord I wanted two names 'cause everybody else had two, and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“I am glad to see that men are getting their rights, but I want women to get theirs, and while the water is stirring, I will step into the pool.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.”
-- Sojourner Truth -
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“And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother's grief none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”
-- Sojourner Truth -
“Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.”
-- Sojourner TruthSource : "Ain't I A Woman?". Sojourner Truth's speech at the Women's Rights Convention at Old Stone Church in Akron, Ohio, www.nps.gov. May 29, 1851.
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