WIST

Fanatics are governed rather by imagination than by judgment.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
(Attributed)
This quote was attributed to "Stowe" in the 1913 ed. of Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (itself a reprint of Webster's International Dictionary); this edition has been in the free domain on the Internet and so is frequently cite. It is referenced in quotes as an uncited aphorism in The Unjust Judge (1854).

Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Atlantic Monthly, “The Lady Who Does Her Own Work” (1864)

To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Household Papers and Stories, ch. 10 (1864)

Human nature is above all things — lazy.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Household Papers and Stories, ch. 6 (1864)

All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Household Papers and Stories, Part 2, ch. 2 (1864)

True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Household Papers and Stories, Part 2, ch. 4 (1864)

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Little Foxes, ch. 3 (1865)

I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred — that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. … If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Little Foxes, ch. 3 (1865)

The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Little Foxes, ch. 4 (1865)

Never trust to prayer without using every means in your power, and never use the means without trusting in prayer. Get your evidences of grace by pressing forward to the mark, and not by groping with a lantern after the boundary-lines, — and so, boys, go, and God bless you!

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Old Town Folks, ch. 39 (1869)

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
The Pearl of Orr’s Island, ch. 36 [Aunt Roxy] (1869)

Full text.

Treat ‘em like dogs and you’ll have dogs’ work and dogs’ actions. Treat ‘em like men and you’ll have men’s work.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 11 “In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind” (1852)

The soul awakes … between two dim eternities — the eternal past, the eternal future.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 22 (1852)

Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 28 “Reunion” (1852)
Full text.

Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 28 “Reunion” (1852)
Full text.

The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power humanely and generously is small.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 29 “The Unprotected” (1852)
Full text.

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 29 “The Unprotected” (1852)
Full text.

Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?

The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.

But to live, — to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered, — this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour, — this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 38 “The Victory” (1852)
Full text.

Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? And does not the slave system, by denying the slave all legal right of testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot? Can anybody fall to make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest? Are the honorable, the just, the high-minded and compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world?

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Conclusion (1852)
Full text.

If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master could now and then torture an apprentice to death, would it be received with equal composure? Would it be said, “These cases are rare, and no samples of general practice”? This injustice is an inherent one in the slave system, — it cannot exist without it.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Conclusion (1852)
Full text.

What can any individual do? Of that, every individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do, — they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Conclusion (1852)
Full text.

The greater the interest involved in a truth the more careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry. I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place, because, such as it is, it is better than nothing.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Letter to William Lloyd Garrison (1853)