In such a condition of affairs, the practical difference between the abolitionist and the sympathizer, to the man who lost his slave and could not recover it, was very nebulous.

In those days, slavery was not looked upon, even in Quaker Philadelphia, with the shudder and abhorrence one feels towards it now.

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

I was a tried seaman when, for the first time, I set foot upon the soil of my country, and took up my residence where my people had lived for over two hundred years.

In the year 1857, passing through Washington on our return from the annual visit to Philadelphia, I had the distinguished honor of visiting a President for the first time.

However the Southern man may have been master of the negro, there were compensatory processes whereby certain negroes were masters of their masters' children.

In all her history, from the formation of the federal government until the hour of secession, no year stands out more prominently than the year 1858 as evidencing the national patriotism of Virginia.

The first American ancestor of our name was a younger son of these old Devonshire people, and came to the Virginia colony in the reign of Charles the First.

THE autumn of 1850 brought an event freighted with deep significance to me. My mother died.

As early as the autumn of 1862, I was made very happy by being sent to school.

My mother was a Northern woman, daughter of Hon. John Sergeant, a distinguished lawyer, and for many years representative in Congress from Philadelphia.

As long as poverty & hunger is prevalent in any continent or country, then the world at large is never safe.

All books are judged by their covers until they are read.

When you judge someone you have no time to love them.

I don't think saying "I was wrong here, I was wrong there" absolves you of anything particularly, nor does it get you into heaven.

To live is to have problems and to solve problems is to to grow intellectually.

It's rather grisly, isnt it, how soon a living man becomes nothing more than a collection of stocks and bonds and debts and real estate?

Only audiences decide what's a franchise. Only audiences decide what's a hit. I have always been mindful of not wanting to be the Miami Heat of movies.

The hard thing is getting people to come to the theater to see something, no matter if it's good or not.

GPS are everywhere. They are in cars. They were even in the half-tracks that, initially at least, were going to make the ground invasion in Kosovo possible.

I like men with some belly who are a little over the hill.