“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.”

And ar’n’t I a woman?

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.

Then I will speak upon the ashes.

It is the mind that makes the body.

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.

Truth is powerful and it prevails.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

Truth burns up error.

I am not going to die, I’m going home like a shooting star.

Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.

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!

When I left the house of bondage I left everything behind. I wanted to keep nothing of Egypt on me, and so I went to the Lord and asked him to give me a new name.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.

Each say following another, either hastening or putting off our death–what pleasure does it bring? I count that man worthless whois cheered by empty hopes. No, a noble man must either live or die well.

knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy’s onset.

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can’t change. After I die, I’ll probably come back as a paintbrush.

I would suggest that the next generation stop looking for happiness outside of themselves but instead turn inward.

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.

What makes me most happy is connecting with others. I love meeting new people, being social, and engaging in empowering discussions.

The more you retrain yourself to choose happiness over fear, the more blissful you will be.