The Spirit calls me, and I must go.
SOJOURNER TRUTHOh no, honey, I can’t read little things like letters. I read big things like men.
More Sojourner Truth Quotes
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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 TRUTH -
It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
The rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another.
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 -
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 TRUTH -
And ar’n’t I a woman?
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 -
I am a woman’s rights. I have as much as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
Truth burns up error.
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 -
Christ came from God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
Christ came from God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
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.
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 -
Then I will speak upon the ashes.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
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 TRUTH -
Oh no, honey, I can’t read little things like letters. I read big things like men.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
I am not going to die, I’m going home like a shooting star.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
Where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.
SOJOURNER TRUTH -
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 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