Top 250 Harriet Beecher Stowe Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

202. “No matter how kind her mistress is, – no matter how much she loves her home; beg her not to go back, – for slavery always ends in misery.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

203. “It’s a free country, sir; the man’s mine, and I do.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

204. “Somewhat mollified by certain cups of very good coffee, he came out smiling and talking, in tolerably restored humor.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

205. “The shape of her head and the turn of her neck and bust were peculiarly noble, and the long golden-brown hair that floated like a cloud around it, the deep spiritual gravity of her violet blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes of golden brown.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

206. “And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life’s great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow!”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

207. “And in those tears they all shed together, the high and the lowly, melted away all the heart-burnings and anger of the oppressed. O, ye who visit the distressed, do ye know that everything your money can buy, given with a cold, averted face, is not worth one honest tear shed in real sympathy?”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

208. “Mrs. Bird, seeing the defenseless condition of the enemy’s territory, had no more conscience than to push her advantage.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

209. “Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

210. “Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the kingdom,” said Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and looking anxiously at her cousin. “Thank you for your good opinion; but it’s up and down with me, – up to heaven’s gate in theory, down in earth’s dust in practice.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

211. “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.” “But in cases where your doing so would involve a great public evil – ” “Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can’t. It’s always safest, all round, to do as He bids us.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

212. “My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of – what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

213. “My daughter,′ came naturally from the lips of Rachel Halliday; for hers was just the face and form that made ‘mother’ seem the most natural word in the world.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

214. “Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such as marigolds, petunias, four-o’clocks, found an indulgent corner in which to unfold their splendors, and were the delight and pride of Aunt Chloe’s heart.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

215. “Nothing is easier than talking,” said St. Clare. “I believe Shakespeare makes somebody say, ‘I could sooner show twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow my own showing.’ Nothing like division of labor. My forte lies in talking, and yours, cousin, lies in doing.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

216. “The gift to appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and relations of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose whole life shows a careless disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron, Goethe, often speak words more wisely descriptive of the true religious sentiment, than another man, whose whole life is governed by it. In such minds, disregard of religion is a more fearful treason, – a more deadly sin.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

217. “That’s you Christians, all over! – you’ll get up a society, and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let me see one of you that would take one into your house with you, and take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No; when it comes to that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it’s too much care, and so on.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

218. “If we would not meet trouble for a good cause, we were not worthy of our name.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

219. “Tom looked up to his master, and answered, “Mas’r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I’d give ye my heart’s blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I’d give ’em freely, as the Lord gave his for me. O, Mas’r! don’t bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than ’t will me! Do the worst you can, my troubles’ll be over soon; but, if ye don’t repent, yours won’t never end!”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

220. “In that book which she and her simple old friend had read so much together, she had seen and taken to her young heart the image of one who loved the little child; and, as she gazed and mused, He had ceased to be an image and a picture of the distant past, and come to be a living, all-surrounding reality. His love enfolded her childish heart with more than mortal tenderness; and it was to Him, she said, she was going, and to his home. But.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

221. “And this, oh Africa! latest called of nations, – called to the crown of thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony, – this is to be thy victory; by this shalt thou reign with Christ when his kingdom shall come on earth.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

222. “He closed his eyes, but still retained his hold; for, in the gates of eternity, the black hand and the white hold each other with an equal clasp.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

223. “You ladies go to church to learn how to get along in the world, I suppose, and your piety sheds respectability on us. If I did go at all, I would go where Mammy goes; there’s something to keep a fellow awake there, at least.” “What! those shouting Methodists? Horrible!” said Marie. “Anything but the dead sea of your respectable churches, Marie.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

224. “For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one’s feelings, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities move on! Still we must eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again, – still bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer questions, – pursue, in short, a thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over; the cold, mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital interest in it has fled.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

225. “Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the State of Kentucky.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

226. “Ye who have wondered to hear, in the same evangel, that God is love, and that God is a consuming fire, see ye not how, to the soul resolved in evil, perfect love is the most fearful torture, the seal and sentence of the direst despair?”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

227. “Ah, good brother! is it fair for you to expect of us services which your own brave, honorable heart would not allow you to render, were you in our place?”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

228. “The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a place where tears are dry; but every one around her was, in some way characteristic of themselves, showing signs of hearty sympathy.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

229. “They knelt together, and the good man prayed, – for there are some feelings so agitated and tumultuous, that they can find rest only by being poured into the bosom of Almighty love, – and then, rising up, the new-found family embraced each other, with a holy trust in Him, who from such peril and dangers, and by such unknown ways, had brought them together.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

230. “I used to think, if there was anything in the world he did love, it was our dear little Eva; but he seems to be forgetting her very easily. I cannot ever get him to talk about her. I really did think he would show more feeling!” “Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me,” said Miss Ophelia, oracularly.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

231. “He who glides dreamily down the glassy surface of a mighty river floats securely, making his calculations to row upward. He knows nothing what the force of that seemingly glassy current will be when his one feeble oar is set against the whole volume of its waters.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

232. “One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

233. “He’ll go to torment, and no mistake,” said little Jake.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

234. “Mamma,” said Eva, “I want to have some of my hair cut off, – a good deal of it.” “What for?” said Marie. “Mamma, I want to give some away to my friends, while I am able to give it to them myself. Won’t you ask aunty to come and cut it for me?” Marie raised her voice, and called Miss Ophelia, from the other room. The child half rose from her pillow as she came in, and, shaking down her long golden-brown curls, said, rather playfully, “Come, aunty, shear the sheep!”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

235. “It’s such a pity, – oh! such a pity!” said Eva, looking out on the distant lake, and speaking half to herself. “What’s a pity?” said Marie. “Why, that any one, who could be a bright angel, and live with angels, should go all down, down down, and nobody help them! – oh dear!” “Well, we can’t help it; it’s no use worrying, Eva! I don’t know what’s to be done; we ought to be thankful for our own advantages.” “I hardly can be,” said Eva, “I’m so sorry to think of poor folks that haven’t any.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

236. “Now is all the time I have anything to do with,” said Miss Ophelia.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

237. “Now, I’ve been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I’ve been talked to.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

238. “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 it yourselves, when it comes to practice.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

239. “Yes, I know you do! There isn’t one of you that hasn’t always been very kind to me; and I want to give you something that, when you look at, you shall always remember me, I’m going to give all of you a curl of my hair; and, when you look at it, think that I loved you and am gone to heaven, and that I want to see you all there.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

240. “Tell ye what, Mas’r George, the Lord gives good many things twice over; but he don’t give ye a mother but once. Ye’ll never see sich another woman, Mas’r George, if ye live to be a hundred years old. So, now, you hold on to her, and grow up, and be a comfort to her, thar’s my own good boy, – you will now, won’t ye?”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

241. “If it comes to that, I can earn myself at least six feet of free soil.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

242. “It was a feeling which he had seen before in his mother; but no chord within vibrated to it.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

243. “Well, then, I will die!” said Tom. “Spin it out as long as they can, they can’t help my dying, some time! – and, after that, they can’t do no more. I’m clar, I’m set! I know the Lord’ll help me, and bring me through.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

244. “O, ye who take freedom from man, with what words shall ye answer it to God?”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

245. “Mas’r,” said Tom, “I know ye can do dreadful things; but,” – he stretched himself upward and clasped his hands, – “but, after ye’ve killed the body, there an’t no more ye can do. And O, there’s all ETERNITY to come, after that!”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

246. “If I must be sold, or all the people on the place, and everything go to rack, why, let me be sold. I s’pose I can bar it as well as any on ’em,” he added, while something like a sob and a sigh shook his broad, rough chest convulsively. “Mas’r always found me on the spot – he always will. I never have broke trust, nor used my pass no ways contrary to my word, and I never will. It’s better for me alone to go, than to break up the place and sell all.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

247. “Poor Cassy!” said Emmeline, “don’t feel so! If the Lord gives us liberty, perhaps he’ll give you back your daughter; at any rate, I’ll be like a daughter to you. I know I’ll never see my poor old mother again! I shall love you, Cassy, whether you love me or not!”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

248. “Patience! patience! ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the oppressed, is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory. In his patient, generous bosom he bears the anguish of a world. Bear thou, like him, in patience, and labor in love; for sure as he is God, “the year of his redeemed shall come.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

249. “Never say there isn’t enough time for a thing that ought to be done. If a thing is necessary, why, life is long enough to find a place for it.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

250. “You laugh!” said the trader, with a growl. “Lord bless you, Mas’r, I couldn’t help it now,” said Sam, giving way to the long pent-up delight of his soul. “She looked so curi’s, a leapin’ and springin’ – ice a crackin’ – and only to hear her, – plump! ker chunk! ker splash! Spring! Lord! how she goes it!” and Sam and Andy laughed till the tears rolled down their cheeks.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe