Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist.
Born Isabella Baumfree around 1797, Sojourner Truth endured the cruel life of slavery in Swartekill, New York.
Sold multiple times, she faced severe hardships, such as forced marriage and the constant fear of her children being taken.
Despite her trials, she learned English and exemplified resilience. In 1825, after her owner reneged on his promise of emancipation, she escaped to the Van Wageners, a family opposed to slavery, who bought and freed her.
Truth bravely took legal action to retrieve her son sold illegally across state lines, marking a rare victory for an enslaved woman against a white man.
Once freed, she became an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, famously delivering the “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851.
Her courage and storytelling played a crucial role in exposing the immorality of slavery, making her a revered figure, ultimately inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Inspiring Sojourner Truth Quotes
Truth is powerful and it prevails. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Truth burns up error. ~ Sojourner Truth.
We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. ~ Sojourner Truth.
It is the mind that makes the body. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Where there is so much racket, there must be something out of kilter. ~ Sojourner Truth.
If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn’t ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full? ~ Sojourner Truth.
Yes,′ she said, ’the rich rob the poor, and the poor rob one another. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Best Sojourner Truth Quotes
I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring. Because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again. ~ Sojourner Truth.
And what is that religion that sanctions, even by its silence, all that is embraced in the ‘Peculiar Institution’? If there can be anything more diametrically opposed to the religion of Jesus, than the working of this soul-killing system – which is as truly sanctioned by the religion of America as are her ministers and churches – we wish to be shown where it can be found. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Let others say what they will of the efficacy of prayer, I believe in it, and I shall pray. Thank God! Yes, I shall always pray ~ Sojourner Truth.
What we give to the poor, we lend to the Lord. ~ Sojourner Truth.
You may hiss as much as you please, but women will get their rights anyway. ~ Sojourner Truth.
And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother’s grief none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? ~ Sojourner Truth.
Famous Sojourner Truth Quotes
It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must. ~ Sojourner Truth.
When I left the house of bondage I left everything behind. I wanted to keep nothing of Egypt on me, and so I went to the Lord and asked him to give me a new name. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Oh no, honey, I can’t read little things like letters. I read big things like men. ~ Sojourner Truth.
I don’t read such small stuff as letters, I read men and nations. I can see through a millstone, though I can’t see through a spelling-book. What a narrow idea a reading qualification is for a voter! ~ Sojourner Truth.
Now, if you want me to get out of the world, you had better get the women voting soon. I shan’t go till I can do that. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Many slaveholders boast of the love of their slaves. How would it freeze the blood of some of them to know what kind of love rankles in the bosoms of slaves for them! Witness the attempt to poison Mrs. Calhoun, and hundreds of similar cases. Most ‘surprising ’ to every body, because committed by slaves supposed to be so grateful for their chains. ~ Sojourner Truth.
I feel safe in the midst of my enemies, for the truth is all powerful and will prevail. ~ Sojourner Truth.
If it is not a fit place for women, it is unfit for men to be there. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Top Sojourner Truth Quotes
I am above eighty years old; it is about time for me to be going. I have been forty years a slave and forty years free and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Because of them I can now live the dream. I am the seed of the free, and I know it. I intend to bear great fruit. ~ Sojourner Truth.
You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again. ~ Sojourner Truth.
This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book. ~ Sojourner Truth.
The Spirit calls me, and I must go. ~ Sojourner Truth.
I am glad to see that men are getting their rights, but I want women to get theirs, and while the water is stirring, I will step into the pool. ~ Sojourner Truth.
He was soon drawn into a circle of associates who did not improve either his habits or his morals. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Then I will speak upon the ashes. ~ Sojourner Truth.
The rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Popular Sojourner Truth Quotes
Christ came from God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Look there above the center, where the flag is waving bright; We are going out of slavery, we are bound for freedom’s light; We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africans can fight… ~ Sojourner Truth.
I am a woman’s rights. I have as much as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? ~ Sojourner Truth.
I tell you I can’t read a book, but I can read de people. ~ Sojourner Truth.
We have all been thrown down so low that nobody thought we’d ever get up again; but we have been long enough trodden now; we will come up again, and now I am here. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me. ~ Sojourner Truth.
If women want rights more than they got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it. ~ Sojourner Truth.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. ~ Sojourner Truth.
When I preaches, I has just one text to preach from, an’ I always preaches from this one. My text is, ‘When I found Jesus.’ ~ Sojourner Truth.
Great Sojourner Truth Quotes
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. ~ Sojourner Truth.
Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other. ~ Sojourner Truth.
I am not going to die, I’m going home like a shooting star. ~ Sojourner Truth.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? ~ Sojourner Truth.
Her unwavering confidence in an arm which she believed to be stronger than all others combined could have raised from her sinking spirit. ~ Sojourner Truth.
So these were the 45 top Sojourner Truth quotes on equality, education and women’s rights.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Alice Walker quotes and George Washington Carver quotes.
