Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.
Where there is so much racket, there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the discord in society regarding rights and suggests that this chaos will lead to challenges for those in power.
Sojourner Truth’s quote speaks to the tension and unrest present in society concerning the rights of different groups, particularly highlighting the divide between African Americans in the South and women in the North. It suggests that such heightened discourse—referred to as 'racket'—indicates underlying issues that could soon challenge the status quo, particularly for white men who may be forced to confront the demands for equality and justice from these groups.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about civil rights movements to illustrate the chaos that can arise in the pursuit of justice.
More from Sojourner Truth
All quotes →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?
The rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another.
Good man! Genuine gentleman! God bless George Thompson, the great-hearted friend of my race.
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?
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.
Similar quotes
The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.
Today the insatiable quest for profit promotes the new slavery. In bewildering ways, the new is more pernicious than the old, for the New American Slave is told he is free, and he clings to that myth as if his life depended upon it, a suspicion that cannot be totally ignored.
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
We may now have reached a point where this gap in our make-up has become unsustainable; partly because what in the past would have counted as material plenty has become the norm for the majority in much of the world; and partly because the slow retreat of religion that coincided with the spread of a capitalist economy has left a gaping hole in millions of people's lives. (Geoff Mulgan)
We are compelled by reflection to recognize that God is not to be placed against the material world [as in Christianity], but must be placed as a 'divine power' or 'moving spirit' within the cosmos itself ... All the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as well as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original force.
It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.