“I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day.”

Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian, and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity.

Tis mean for empty praise of wit to write, As fopplings grin to show their teeth are white.

Holiness does not consist in mystic speculations, enthusiastic fervours, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.

The angels are ministering spirits; they are not governing spirits.

Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!

I am gaining in health slowly, and am quite cheerful in view of my approaching end, – being fully persuaded that I am worth inconceivably more to hang than any other purpose.

It is not a case we are treating; it is a living, palpitating, alas, too often suffering fellow creature.

The intent and not the deed Is in our power; and, therefore, who dares greatly Does greatly.

Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!

I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

The same eye cannot both look up to heaven and down to earth.

I think every family should have a dog; it is like having a perpetual baby; it is the plaything and crony of the whole house. It keeps them all young.

I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose.

These men are all talk; What is needed is action – action!

Now let us thank th’ eternal power, convinced That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction: That oft the cloud that wraps the present hour Serves but to brighten all our future days.

There is a shrine in the temple of age, where lie forever embalmed the memories of such as have deserved well of their country and their race.

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.

I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.

And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

Only the moon’s smile can cure the unseen scars of darkness.

From the dark depths of my soul came an intense passion for prose.

A lot of women don’t know how to love because there’s deep reasons for them not knowing how to love. And what I mean by deep reasons is deep and dark reasons.

Love is love, even if it is illicit; like light remains light even in the darkness.