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'Uncle Tom's Cabin' Quotes

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  • "It's jest no use tryin' to keep Miss Eva here. She's got the Lord's mark on her forehead."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 24

  • "O, that's what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and never have any pain,--never suffer anything,--not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, all their lives;--it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to feel about them! Such things always sunk into my heart; they went down deep; I've thought and thought about them. Papa, isn't there any way to have all slaves made free?"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 24

  • "I told you, Cousin, that you'd find out that these creatures can't be brought up without severity. If I had my way, now, I'd send that child out, and have her thoroughly whipped; I'd have her whipped till she couldn't stand!"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 25

  • "No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger!--she'd 's soon have a toad touch her! There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do nothin'! I don't care."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 25

  • "O, Topsy, poor child, I love you! I love you, because you haven't had any father, or mother, or friends;--because you've been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live a great while; and it really grieves me, to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for my sake;--it's only a little while I shall be with you."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 25

  • "Topsy, you poor child, don't give up! I can love you, though I am not like that dear little child. I hope I've learnt something of the love of Christ from her. I can love you; I do, and I'll try to help you to grow up a good Christian girl."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 27

  • "Delicacy! A fine word for such as she! I'll teach her, with all her airs, that she's no better than the raggedest black wench that walks the streets! She'll take no more airs with me!"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 29

  • "Now, I'm principled against emancipating, in any case. Keep a negro under the care of a master, and he does well enough, and is respectable; but set them free, and they get lazy, and won't work, and take to drinking, and go all down to be mean, worthless fellows. I've seen it tried, hundreds of times. It's no favor to set them free."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 29

  • "I'm your church now!"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 31

  • "Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious,--didn't you never hear, out of your Bible, 'Servants, obey yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine, now, body and soul?"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 33

  • "Poor critturs! What made 'em cruel?--and, if I give out, I shall get used to 't, and grow, little by little, just like 'em! No, no, Missis! I've lost everything,--wife and children, and home, and a kind Mas'r,--and he would have set me free, if he'd only lived a week longer; I've lost everything in this world, and it's clean gone, forever,--and now I can't lose Heaven, too; no, I can't get to be wicked, besides all!"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 34

  • "When I was a girl, I thought I was religious; I used to love God and prayer. Now, I'm a lost soul, pursued by devils that torment me day and night; they keep pushing me on and on--and I'll do it, too, some of these days! I'll send him where he belongs,--a short way, too,--one of these nights, if they burn me alive for it!"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 34

  • "You're afraid of me, Simon, and you've reason to be. But be careful, for I've got the devil in me!"
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 35

  • "How long Tom lay there, he knew not. When he came to himself, the fire was gone out, his clothes were wet with the chill and drenching dews; but the dread soul-crisis was past, and, in the joy that filled him, he no longer felt hunger, cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 38

  • "From his deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope in the life that now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning sacrifice to the Infinite. Tom looked up to the silent, ever-living stars,--types of the angelic hosts who ever look down on man; and the solitude of the night rung with the triumphant words of a hymn, which he had sung often in happier days, but never with such feeling as now."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 38

  • "No, time was when I would, but the Lord's given me a work among these yer poor souls, and I'll stay with 'em and bear my cross with 'em till the end. It's different with you; it's a snare to you,--it's more 'n you can stand,--and you'd better go if you can."
    - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 38

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