| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 56541 |
| QUOTATION: | ... continual hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren, and, like the scorching sands of Arabia, produces nothing; or, like the uncultivated soil, brings forth thorns and thistles. Again, continual hard labor irritates our tempers and sours our dispositions; the whole system become worn out with toil and fatigue; nature herself becomes almost exhausted, and we care but little whether we live or die. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Maria Stewart (1803–1879), African American abolitionist and schoolteacher. As quoted in Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life, part 3, by Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin (1976).
Stewart, a free African American, said this in a September 21, 1832 speech delivered at Franklin Hall in Boston. She was arguing for education to improve the lot of Northern African Americans—especially girls. |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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