Top 47 Solomon Northup Quotes
#1. Steve MCQueen created an entire family to tell one man's tale and I am delighted that so many of this family have also been recognised today. I am hugely grateful to the Academy for this great honour, and, of course, to Solomon Northup for sharing his story through his breathtaking book.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#2. Solomon Northup is one of the most remarkable people I've ever encountered in my life; one of the most amazing stories I have ever been in any kind of contact with. To not tell that story would have been disgraceful, in my opinion.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#3. For sheer drama, few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northup's tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement.
Ira Berlin
#4. I didn't know anything about '12 Years a Slave.' Not the book, not Solomon Northup, which I was quite shocked by, once I'd read it, that it wasn't a seminal text. I think it deserves to be.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#6. Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.
Solomon Northup
#7. I can speak of slavery only so far as it came under my own observation - only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person.
Solomon Northup
#8. To ask the master for a knife, or skillet, or any small convenience of the kind, would be answered with a kick, or laughed at as a joke. Whatever necessary article of this nature is found in a cabin has been purchased with Sunday money.
Solomon Northup
#9. Soon after he purchased me, Epps asked me if I could write and read, and on being informed that I had received some instruction in those branches of education, he assured me, with emphasis, if he ever caught me with a book, or with pen and ink, he would give me a hundred lashes.
Solomon Northup
#10. The terrible lesson Burch taught me, impressed indelibly upon my mind the danger and uselessness of asserting I was a freeman. There was no possibility of any slave being able to assist me, while, on the other hand, there was a possibility of his exposing me.
Solomon Northup
#11. considerable amount in consideration of his services in
Solomon Northup
#12. It is the literal, unvarnished truth, that the crack of the lash, and the shrieking of the slaves, can be heard from dark till bed time, on Epps' plantation, any day almost during the entire period of the cotton-picking season.
Solomon Northup
#13. I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery;
Solomon Northup
#14. one knee, with a groan, I released my hold upon his throat,
Solomon Northup
#15. Unsoundness in a slave, as well as in a horse, detracts materially from his value. If no warranty is given, a close examination is a matter of particular importance to the Negro jockey.
Solomon Northup
#17. Alas! I had not then learned the measure of "man's inhumanity to man," nor to what limitless extent of wickedness he will go for the love of gain
Solomon Northup
#20. Death was far less terrible than the living prospect that was before us
Solomon Northup
#21. let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths. Let them know the heart of the poor slave - learn his secret thoughts - thoughts he dare not utter in the hearing of the white man;
Solomon Northup
#23. case with Cocodrie Bayou, which Solomon must have heard with a starting "p." Here is a list
Solomon Northup
#24. So we passed, handcuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington, through the Captial of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man's inalienable right to life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!
Solomon Northup
#27. Credit leads a man into temptation. Cash down is the only thing that will deliver him from evil.
Solomon Northup
#28. Brought up with such ideas - in the notion that we stand without the pale of humanity - no wonder the oppressors of my people are a pitiless and unrelenting race.
Solomon Northup
#29. It has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public,
Solomon Northup
#30. Still he plied the lash without stint upon my poor body, until it seemed that the lacerated flesh was stripped from my bones at every stroke. A man with a particle of mercy in his soul would not have beaten even a dog so cruelly.
Solomon Northup
#32. Suffice it to say, during the whole long day I came not to the conclusion, even once, that the southern slave, fed, clothed, whipped and protected by his master, is happier than the free colored citizen of the North. To that conclusion I have never since arrived.
Solomon Northup
#33. The influence of the iniquitous system necessarily fosters an unfeeling and cruel spirit, even in the bosoms of those who, among their equals, are regarded as humane and generous.
Solomon Northup
#34. The law says you have the right to hold a nigger, but begging the law's pardon, it lies ... Is everything right because the law allows it? Suppose they'd pass a law taking away your liberty and making you a slave?
Solomon Northup
#35. There's a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be reckoning yet ... it may be sooner or it may be later, but it's a coming as sure as the Lord is just
Solomon Northup
#36. woollyheads and silvergrays, and am unable to understand
Solomon Northup
#37. Not by human dwellings
not in crowded cities alone, are the sights and sounds of life. The wildest places of the earth are full of them.
Solomon Northup
#38. There are few sights more pleasant to the eye than a wide cotton field when it is in bloom. It presents an appearance of purity, like an immaculate expanse of light, new-fallen snow.
Solomon Northup
#39. Drawn up and signed by the proper parties, wherein Epps acknowledged he
Solomon Northup
#40. Eliza, stop crying, You let sorrow take over you; you will drown in it
Solomon Northup
#41. I ask no paradise on high, With cares on earth oppressed,
The only heaven for which I sigh, Is rest, eternal rest.
Solomon Northup
#42. There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow - of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body - has been pleasant to dwell upon.
Solomon Northup
#43. The best dancer appeared to be considered the one who could whoop the loudest, jump the farthest, and utter the most excruciating noise.
Solomon Northup
#44. My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!
Solomon Northup
#45. Let not those who have never been placed in like circumstances judge me harshly
Solomon Northup
#47. Really, it was difficult to determine which I had most reason to fear - dogs, alligators or men!
Solomon Northup
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