The quote database

The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work.

Brothers and sisters we were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers.

I had the grief of neglected chances of escape to brood over

Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?

My heart rebelled against God, who had taken from me mother, father, mistress, and friend.

Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows.

When I saw them embracing each other, and heard their joyous laughter, I turned sadly away from the lovely sight.

A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.

The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.

My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets.

The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately barren indifference.

Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.

At death our friends and relations either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart further from us and are forgotten.

Surely civilization is old enough, surely mankind is mature enough so that we ought in our own lifetime to find a way to permanent peace.

Sorrow purifies and deepens the soul, and the extremity of sorrow is the prelude to Truth.

The emotions excited by the songs of these thrushes belong to a higher order, springing as they do from our deepest sense of the beauty and harmony of the world.

As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail.

Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear.

It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way