John Brown Quotes

• The 60s passed and faded and I grew older, and in 1987 bought a house in upstate New York, and it turned out that John Brown was buried down the road from my house and that he had lived there longer than anywhere else and his house was still standing.

  Russell Banks

  New York, House, Buried

  52 Copy quote

• John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.

  Russell Banks

  War, Rights, Political

  52 Copy quote

• John Brown was tried for treason, murder, and inciting slaves to insurrection.

  John Sergeant Wise

  Murder, Slave, Treason

  John Sergeant Wise, Paul Dennis Sporer (2005). “End of an Era: The Last Days of Traditional Southern Culture as Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Confederate Soldier”, p.91, Anza Publishing

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.

  Frederick Douglass

  War, Slavery, Republic

  Frederick Douglass (2017). “Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn”, p.198, Akashic Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.

  John Mason Brown

  Blood, Land, Civil War

  8 Copy quote

• If I had to write down the most important people in the history of this planet, No.1 would be (abolitionist) John Brown. Why? Because he's a white man who said he would die for the cause, because they could take him, but they weren't going to take his grandchildren. That brother was beautiful.

  Dick Gregory

  Beautiful, Brother, Writing

  Source: www.chicagotribune.com

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.

  Emma Goldman

  Men, Direct Action, America

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.44, Sheba Blake Publishing

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• [John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.

  Frederick Douglass

  War, Light, Government

  Frederick Douglass' Lecture on John Brown, memory.loc.gov.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• This will be a great day in our history; the date of a New Revolution - quite as much needed as the old one. Even now as I write they are leading old John Brown to execution in Virginia for attempting to rescue slaves! This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind which will come soon!

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  War, Writing, Virginia

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.2428, Delphi Classics

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In firing his gun, John Brown has merely told what time of day it is. It is high noon.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  War, Gun, Noon

  19 Copy quote

• Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He'll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Dumb

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1221, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lives of great men all remind us, Greatness takes no easy way, All the heroes of tomorrow, Are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs, Heard the night cry "Down with traitors!" And the dawn shout "Up the rebs!"

  Yip Harburg

  Hero, Night, Greatness

  "A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. November 25, 2004.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It began with one act of madness, and it ended with another. John Brown heard history's clock strike in the night and tried to hurry dawn along with gunfire; now John Wilkes Booth heard the clock strike, and he tried with gunfire to restore the darkness. Each man stood outside the human community, directed by voices the sane do not hear, and each kept history from going logically... The line from Harper's Ferry to Ford's Theater is a red thread binding the immense disorder of the Civil War into an irrational sort of coherence.

  Bruce Catton

  War, Night, Men

  10 Copy quote

• It was Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Wendell Phillips - these were the people who made abolition real. Now, none of you guys is in favor of slavery, right?

  Bill Ayers

  Real, People, Guy

  Source: thepointmag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the songs that stayed in my head that I really considered a lot was an old folk song called 'John Brown' - not the abolitionist John Brown, but the one that Bob Dylan has covered and sung before. It's about a boy coming home from the Civil War, or maybe World War I even, and about his Mother seeing him all destroyed.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Mother, Song, War

  Source: www.coupdemainmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [On John Brown:] The poor wretch is hanged, but from his grave a root of bitterness will spring, the fruit of which at no distant day may be disunion and civil war.

  Fanny Kemble

  Spring, War, Roots

  8 Copy quote

• Life is legal tender, and individual character stamps its value. We are from a thousand mints, and all genuine. Despite our infinitely diverse appraisements, we make change for one another. So many ideals planted are worth the great gold of Socrates; so many impious laws broken are worth John Brown.

  Louise Imogen Guiney

  Character, Law, Broken

  Louise Imogen Guiney (1897). “Patrins, to which is added An inquirendo into the wit & other good parts of His late Majesty King Charles the Second”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seemed to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Dying, Immortality

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.72, Rowman & Littlefield

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We've actually bought quite a number of historical pieces. We are doing a piece on the abolitionists, Harper's Ferry and the abolitionist John Brown with Paul Giamatti.

  John Landgraf

  Numbers, Historical, Pieces

  "FX CEO John Landgraf Talks FARGO Limited Series, THE STRAIN, and More; Says THE STRAIN Will End Up Running Between 39 and 65 Episodes". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. August 2, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As Day and other observers had reported, the slaves were leading very comfortable lives. After this tactic [slave rebellions in the South] failed, it became obvious to the conspirators that an actual military invasion was the only solution to their campaign. The merchant bankers of New England, who were directly controlled by the Rothschilds, were no instructed to finance a military attack against the South. Their instrumentality was the already well-known terrorist, John Brown. He was financed by a group famed as "the Secret Six".

  Eustace Mullins

  Military, War, Secret

  25 Copy quote

• Beneath this slab John Brown is stowed. He watched the ads, And not the road.

  Ogden Nash

  Brown, Slabs, Ads

  'Lather as You Go' (1942)

  31 Copy quote

  Show source