“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.”

Witness, eternal God! Oh, witness that, from this hour, I will do what one man can to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!

There are griefs which grow with years.

I am one of the sort that lives by throwing stones at other people’s glass houses, but I never mean to put up one for them to stone.

Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!

It lies around us like a cloud- A world we do not see; Yet the sweet closing of an eye May bring us there to be.

The Negro is an exotic of the most gorgeous and superb countries of the world, and he has deep in his heart a passion for all that is splendid, rich and fanciful.

Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.

Self respect is impossible without liberty.

Many a humble soul will be amazed to find that the seed it sowed in weakness, in the dust of daily life, has blossomed into immortal flowers under the eye of the Lord.

Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life’s undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room.

The person who decides what shall be the food and drink of a family, and the modes of its preparation, is the one who decides, to a greater or less extent, what shall be the health of that family.

If you destroy delicacy and a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast.

What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic.

I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak. I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.

Half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love.

Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us.

Handsome is that handsome does.

Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.

It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.

Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions and him entirely and all together.

What are we doing here, that is the question.

Good words,” I replied. “But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don’t forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.