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Harriet Beecher Stowe Biography

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“Is it strange, then, that some tears fall on the pages of his Bible, as he lays it on the cotton-bale, and, with patient finger, threading his slow way from word to word, traces out its promises? Having learned late in life, Tom was but a slow reader, and passed on laboriously from verse to verse. Fortunate for him was it that the book he was intent on was one which slow reading cannot injure,--nay, one whose words, like ingots of gold, seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the mind may take in their priceless value.”

Bible
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“Your Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration of the doctrine of transmitted instincts and peculiarities. His fathers were mighty hunters, - men who lived in the woods, and slept under the free, open heavens, with the stars to hold their candles; and their descendant to this day always acts as if the house were his camp, - wears his hat at all hours, tumbles himself about, and puts his heels on the tops of chairs or mantel-pieces, just as his father rolled on the green sward, and put his upon trees or logs, - keep all the windows and doors open, winter and summer, that he may get air enough for his great lungs, - calls everybody "stranger", with nonchalant bonhommie, and is altogether the frankest, easiest, most jovial creature living.”

Human Nature
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!" ... "Now, John, I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.”

ReligionHumanityPoliticsFreedomCompassionEmpathyRacismSlaveryEqualityAfrican American
Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
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“آقای ویلسن من از شما می پرسم که اگر بومی ها شما را زندانی کنند، از زن و فرزندانتان جدایتان سازند و اگر وادارتان کنند که تا آخر عمر گندم آسیاب کنید، آیا اعتقاد خواهید داشت که باقی ماندن در چنین حالتی وظیفه ی شماست و باید به درخواست تقدیر تسلیم باشید؟؛ نه! من یقین دارم در آن حال شما نخستین اسبی را که در دسترس ببینید به عنوان فرستاده ی تقدیر برای نجات از چنان وضعی سوار می شوید و فرار می کنید. آیا جز این است؟”

NovelNineteenth CenturyAmerican LiteratureClassic Literatureرمانادبیات کلاسیکادبیات آمریکاقرن نوزدهم
Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
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“Mary! Mary! My dear, let me reason with you. I hate reasoning, John,—especially reasoning on such subjects. There's a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing; and you don't believe in it yourselves, when it comes to practice. I know you well enough, John. You don't believe it's right any more than I do; and you wouldn't do it any sooner than I.”

ReasonTruthPoliticsBeliefPracticeSlavery
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“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. There is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly called living, yet to be gone through…”

DeathUncleTomCabinHarrietBeecherStowe
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“He was as bold as a lion about it, and 'mightily convinced' not only himself, but everybody that heard him;—but then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word,—or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle, with "Ran away from the subscriber" under it. The magic of the real presence of distress,—the imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony,—these he had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenseless child,—like that one which was now wearing his lost boy's little well-known cap; and so, as our poor senator was not stone or steel,—as he was a man, and a downright noble-hearted one, too,—he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case for his patriotism.”

PerspectiveSlaveryEscapeFugitive
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him nay! Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, anymore than I have any father. But I'm going to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone,--to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!”

RacismSocial JusticeSlaveryHuman RightsCivil Disobedience
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“Well," said St. Clare, "suppose that something shoul bring down the price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a drug in the market, don't you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine? What flood of light would pour the church, all at once, and immediately it would be discovered that everything in the bible and reason went the other way.”

ReligionSlaveryHypocrisy Of Religion
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath.”

ReligionBelief
Book:Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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“¡Ay, ese niño, cuánto lo quería! ¡Se parecía muchísimo a mi pobre Henry! ¡Pero había decidido que nunca más dejaría que un hijo mío viviera para hacerse adulto! Cogí al pequeño en brazos cuando tenía dos semanas y lo besé y lloré; y después le di láudano y lo estreché contra mi pecho hasta que murió en sueños. ¡Cómo lo eché de menos! Cualquiera hubiera pensado que administrarle el láudano fue un error, pero es una de las pocas cosas de las que me alegro ahora. No me arrepiento tampoco hoy; por lo menos ha dejado de sufrir. ¿Qué le podía dar mejor que la muerta, a la pobre criatura?”

Hard TimesSlavery QuotesDramatic Moment
Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
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“It's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world. Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, we should be beggared if we give it up, and, of course, we mean to hold on to it,—this is strong, clear, well-defined language; it has the respectability of truth to it; and, if we may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will bear us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, and snuffle, and quote Scripture, I incline to think he isn't much better than he should be.”

TruthAmericaReligionPerspectiveSlaveryAccuracySkew
Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
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“IT is not to be denied that full half of the tourists and travellers that come to Florida return intensely disappointed, and even disgusted. Why? Evidently because Florida, like a piece of embroidery, has two sides to it,—one side all tag-rag and thrums, without order or position; and the other side showing flowers and arabesques and brilliant coloring. Both these sides exist. Both are undeniable, undisputed facts, not only in the case of Florida, but of every place and thing under the sun. There is a right side and a wrong side to every thing.”

MemoirTravel Guide
Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe
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“But, Augustine, you don't know how I found things." "Don't I? Don't I know that the rolling-pin is under her bed, and the nutmeg-grater in her pocket with her tobacco,—that there are sixty-five different sugar-bowls, one in every hole in the house,—that she washes dishes with a dinner-napkin one day, and with a fragment of an old petticoat the next? But the upshot is, she gets up glorious dinners, makes superb coffee; and you must judge her as warriors and statesmen are judged, by her success.”

HumorSuccess
Book:Uncle Tom's Cabin
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