Quotes from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it "the atmosphere of hell"; and I believe it is so.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“God judges men by their hearts, not by the color of their skins.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“My Master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Would that I had more ability! But my heart is so full, and my pen is so weak!”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“The brightest skies are always foreshadowed by dark clouds”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“He grew vexed and asked if poverty and hardships with freedom, were not preferable to our treatment in slavery...No, I will not stay. Let them bring me back. We don't die but once.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“the scripture says "oppression makes it even a wise man mad"...”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“No, I did not think of him. When a man is hunted like a wild beast he forgets there is a God, a heaven. He forgets every thing in his struggle to get beyond the reach of the bloodhounds.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“They all spoke kindly of my dead mother, who had been a slave merely in name, but in nature was noble and womanly.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Women are considered of no value, unless they continually increase their owner's stock. They are put on a par with animals. This same master shot a woman through the head, who had run away and been brought back to him. No one called him to account for it. If a slave resisted being whipped, the bloodhounds were unpacked, and set upon him, to tear his flesh from his bones. The master who did these things was highly educated, and styled a perfect gentleman. He also boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower. I”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“I resolved not to be conquered again.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Satan's church is here below; Up to God's free church I hope to go.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“What does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till dark on the plantations? of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from their arms by slave traders? of young girls dragged down into moral filth? of pools of blood around the whipping post? of hounds trained to tear human flesh?”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Yet few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin occasioned by this wicked system. Their talk is of blighted cotton crops--not of the blight on their children's souls.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“There are no bonds so strong as those which are formed by suffering together.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Ah, if he had ever been a slave he would have known how difficult it was to trust white men.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Moreover, they thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were human beings.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Take courage, Willie; brighter days will come by and by.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“I admit that the black man is inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white men compel him to live;”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Do you know that I have a right to do as I like with you,—that I can kill you, if I please?" "You”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“They had never felt slavery; and, when it was too late, they were convinced of its reality. When”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it "the atmosphere of hell;" and I believe it is so.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“As I was about to open the street door, Sally laid her hand on my shoulder, and said, "Linda, is you gwine all”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“It seemed as if I were born to bring sorrow on all who befriended me, and that was the bitterest drop in the bitter cup of my life.”
― Harriet Ann Jacobs, quote from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

About the author

Popular quotes

“The ideal human diet looks like this: Consume plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural state as possible (“whole” foods). Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains. Avoid heavily processed foods and animal products. Stay away from added salt, oil, and sugar. Aim to get 80 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, 10 percent from fat, and 10 percent from protein.”
― T. Colin Campbell, quote from Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

“I'll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from The Portable Henry Rollins

“It is not important whether what he is chanting is true or not, whether you believe in it or not. Your decision to chant along with him is no measure of your commitment to justice or freedom or whatever lofty principle is at hand. Sometimes, radical slogans are a trap. They are shouted by infiltrators so that a group of students protesting a press crackdown can be depicted as seeking to overthrow the regime. Sometimes they are not traps at all but the frustrated stand of a brave person. But how are you to know? Your objective is to avoid being a pawn, to avoid getting dragged into trouble because you are curious, or believe you are seeing history being made." They”
― Shirin Ebadi, quote from Iran Awakening

“The accounts of rape, wife beating, forced childbearing, medical butchering, sex-motivated murder, forced prostitution, physical mutilation, sadistic psychological abuse, and other commonplaces of female experi
ence that are excavated from the past or given by contemporary survivors should leave the heart seared, the mind in anguish, the conscience in upheaval. But they do not. No matter how often these stories are told, with whatever clarity or eloquence, bitterness or sorrow, they might as well have been whispered in wind or written in sand: they disappear, as if they were nothing. The tellers and the stories are ignored or ridiculed, threatened back into silence or destroyed, and the experience of female suffering is buried in cultural invisibility and contempt… the very reality of abuse sustained by women, despite its overwhelming pervasiveness and constancy, is negated. It is negated in the transactions of everyday life, and it is negated in the history books, left out, and it is negated by those who claim to care about suffering but are blind to this suffering.

The problem, simply stated, is that one must believe in the existence of the person in order to recognize the authenticity of her suffering. Neither men nor women believe in the existence of women as significant beings. It is impossible to remember as real the suffering of someone who by definition has no legitimate claim to dignity or freedom, someone who is in fact viewed as some thing, an object or an absence. And if a woman, an individual woman multiplied by billions, does not believe in her own discrete existence and therefore cannot credit the authenticity of her own suffering, she is erased, canceled out, and the meaning of her life, whatever it is, whatever it might have been, is lost. This loss cannot be calculated or comprehended. It is vast and awful, and nothing will ever make up for it.”
― Andrea Dworkin, quote from Right Wing Women

“She had a strange, wild beauty, a face that was disconcerting at first, but unforgettable. Her eyes in particular had an expression, at once voluptuous and fierce, that I have never seen on any human face. 'Gypsy's eye, wolf's eye' is a phrase Spaniards apply to people with keen powers of observation.”
― Prosper Mérimée, quote from Carmen

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.