Best 16 quotes of Solomon Northup on MyQuotes

Credit leads a man into temptation. Cash down is the only thing that will deliver him from evil.

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.

I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery.

It has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public.

It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him. Taught from earliest childhood, by all that he sees and hears that the rod is for the slave's back, he will not be apt to change his opinions in maturer years.

Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.

My back is thick with scars for protesting my freedom.

My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!

Really, it was difficult to determine which I had most reason to fear—dogs, alligators or men!

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.

There are few sights more pleasant to the eye, than a wide cotton field when it is in the bloom. It presents an appearance of purity, like an immaculate expanse of light, new-fallen snow.

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.

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.

What difference is there in the color of the soul?

...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!

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.