"I've heard 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' read, and I tell you Mrs. Stowe's pen hasn't begun to paint what slavery is as I have seen it at the far South. I've seen de real thing, and I don't want to see it on no stage or in no theater."

Art

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Art as articulated by Harriet Tubman. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Art provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and social activist. After escaping slavery, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage.

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More by Harriet Tubman

"I think there's many a slaveholder'll get to Heaven. They don't know better. They acts up to the light they have."

— Harriet Tubman
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"'Pears like I prayed all the time, 'bout my work, everywhere, I prayed an' groaned to the Lord."

— Harriet Tubman
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"Most of those coming from the mainland are very destitute, almost naked. I am trying to find places for those able to work, and provide for them as best I can, so as to lighten the burden on the Government as much as possible, while at the same time they learn to respect themselves by earning their own living."

— Harriet Tubman
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"I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death if I could not have one, I would have the other."

— Harriet Tubman
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More about Art

"It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf."

— Walter Lippmann
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"It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week."

— Ezra Pound
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"Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist."

— Jose Ortega y Gasset
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"It does not seem that the contradiction which exists between the aristocratic function of art and the democratic structure of modern society can ever be resolved."

— Herbert Read
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