“I had two sisters carried away in a chain-gang – one of them left two children. We were always uneasy.”

I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.

I think there’s many a slaveholder’ll get to Heaven. They don’t know better. They acts up to the light they have.

Pears like my heart go flutter, flutter, and then they may say, ‘Peace, Peace,’ as much as they likes – I know it’s goin’ to be war!

I grew up like a neglected weed – ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it.

Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation.

I was the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.

I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.

When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything.

The Lord who told me to take care of my people meant me to do it just as long as I live, and so I did what he told me.

Twasn’t me, ’twas the Lord! I always told Him, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,’ an’ He always did.

Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Now I’ve been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.

Oh, Lord! You’ve been with me in six troubles, don’t desert me in the seventh!

I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.

We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.

In my dreams and visions, I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn’t reach them no-how. I always fell before I got to the line.

The greatest respect is owed to a child.

A lot of my mistakes, are birthed by curiosity. Like a child, drawn to fire; I came for the light and found pain instead.

It’s wrong for parents to bury their children. It should be the other way around.

Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?

Every door of racial prejudice I can kick down, is one less door that my children have to kick down.

I tried to allow my children to take risks, to test themselves. Better broken bones than broken spirit.