To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
Harriet Beecher StoweRead
Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!
Interpretation
What this quote means
Harriet Beecher Stowe emphasizes that slavery itself is a fundamental abuse, rendering discussions of its abuses irrelevant.
In this quote, Harriet Beecher Stowe argues that the institution of slavery is inherently abusive, negating the need to discuss its specific abuses. By labeling slavery as 'the essence of all abuse,' she underscores the moral outrage against the practice, suggesting that any secondary discussions about its horrors fall short of addressing the core immorality of enslaving individuals.
Themes
SlaveryAbuseMoralityFreedomJustice
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on human rights, one might quote Stowe to highlight the fundamental immorality of slavery.
More from Harriet Beecher Stowe
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So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.
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Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!
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Once, in an age, God sends to some of us a friend who loves in us, not a false imagining, an unreal character, but, looking through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our nature, β loves, not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be.
Harriet Beecher StoweRead
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