40 Harriet Tubman Quotes on Freedom, Faith & the Courage to Be Free
Harriet Tubman (c. 1822-1913) was an American abolitionist, political activist, and armed scout who escaped from slavery in Maryland and subsequently made thirteen missions back into the South to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people via the Underground Railroad. Born Araminta Ross, she suffered a traumatic brain injury as a teenager when an overseer struck her in the head with a two-pound metal weight, causing seizures and vivid dream-visions she interpreted as messages from God. During the Civil War she served as a Union spy and became the first woman to lead an armed military operation in the United States -- the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people in a single night.
Harriet Tubman quotes carry the weight of lived courage -- every word forged in the crucible of slavery, midnight escapes, and an unshakable faith that freedom was a God-given right. Born into bondage, Tubman freed herself and then turned around to free dozens more, risking her life on trip after trip along the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman quotes about freedom echo with the urgency of someone who understood its value in her bones. Her words on faith reveal a woman who heard the voice of God in visions and followed it without hesitation into danger. Whether you are searching for harriet tubman quotes on courage to strengthen your own resolve or seeking inspiration from one of the most fearless figures in American history, these 30 harriet tubman quotes will stir your conscience, steel your nerves, and remind you that one determined person can change the world.
Who Was Harriet Tubman?
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Born | c. March 1822, Dorchester County, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | March 10, 1913 (age 91) |
| Nationality | American |
| Role | Abolitionist, Freedom Fighter, Union Spy |
| Known For | Leading 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people via the Underground Railroad |
Key Achievements and Episodes
Escaping Slavery and Returning to Free Others
In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland by traveling nearly 90 miles on foot to Pennsylvania, using the North Star as her guide. Rather than enjoy her freedom, she immediately began planning rescue missions back into slave territory. Over the next decade, she made approximately 13 trips along the Underground Railroad, personally leading roughly 70 enslaved people to freedom — including her elderly parents. Slaveholders posted a $40,000 reward for her capture (equivalent to over $1 million today). She never lost a single passenger, earning her the name 'Moses.'
The First Woman to Lead an Armed Assault in the Civil War
During the Civil War, Tubman served the Union Army as a cook, nurse, armed scout, and spy — the first woman to serve in such roles in American military history. On June 2, 1863, she guided the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina, leading Union troops up the river to destroy Confederate supply lines and liberate over 700 enslaved people. It was the first military operation in American history planned and led by a woman. Despite her extraordinary service, she was paid only $200 over three years and spent decades petitioning the government for a military pension.
A Legacy Written on American Currency
In 2016, the U.S. Treasury announced that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, making her the first African American and the first woman to appear on U.S. paper currency. Although the redesign has been delayed, the decision recognized Tubman's place as one of the most courageous figures in American history. After the war, Tubman established a home for elderly African Americans in Auburn, New York, fought for women's suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony, and continued advocating for the rights of her community until her death in 1913 at approximately 91 years of age.
Who Was Harriet Tubman?
Harriet Tubman (c. 1822--1913) was born Araminta Ross into slavery on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. As a child, she suffered a traumatic head injury when an overseer threw a heavy metal weight that struck her, causing seizures, headaches, and vivid dreams and visions that she interpreted as messages from God for the rest of her life. In 1849, she escaped slavery alone, traveling nearly ninety miles on foot to reach Philadelphia and freedom. Rather than settle into safety, Tubman returned to the South thirteen times as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, personally guiding approximately seventy enslaved people to freedom -- including her elderly parents -- without ever losing a single passenger. Slaveholders posted rewards totaling tens of thousands of dollars for her capture, yet she was never caught. Known as the "Moses of her people," Tubman carried a pistol on her missions and famously refused to let anyone turn back. During the Civil War, she served the Union Army as a cook, nurse, scout, and spy, becoming the first woman in American history to lead an armed military raid when she guided the Combahee River Raid in 1863, liberating more than seven hundred enslaved people. After the war, Tubman settled in Auburn, New York, where she devoted her remaining decades to the women's suffrage movement alongside Susan B. Anthony and other leaders, and established a home for aged and indigent African Americans. She died on March 10, 1913, surrounded by friends and family, and was buried with full military honors. Her extraordinary life of service, sacrifice, and unwavering faith stands as one of the greatest testaments to the human spirit ever recorded.
Tubman Quotes on Freedom and Liberation
Harriet Tubman's understanding of freedom was shaped by her own escape from slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, in September 1849, when she made the perilous ninety-mile journey north to Philadelphia guided by the North Star and the Underground Railroad network. Born Araminta Ross around 1822, she endured brutal treatment as an enslaved person, including a devastating head injury inflicted by an overseer when she was a teenager that caused lifelong seizures and visions she interpreted as messages from God. After reaching freedom, she made approximately thirteen return trips to the Eastern Shore of Maryland between 1850 and 1860, personally leading roughly seventy enslaved people — including her elderly parents — to liberty in the northern states and Canada. Her extraordinary courage earned her the name "Moses" among those she rescued, and slaveholders posted rewards totaling $40,000 for her capture, yet she was never caught and never lost a single passenger on her dangerous journeys.
"I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say -- I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"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."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"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; for no man should take me alive."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"I grew up like a neglected weed -- ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves."
Widely attributed to Tubman -- reflects her frustration with those who accepted bondage
"I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything."
Describing her first moments of freedom -- quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I think slavery is the next thing to hell. If a person would send another into bondage, he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him to hell if he could."
Quoted in Benjamin Drew, The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada, 1856
Tubman Quotes on Faith and God’s Guidance
Tubman's deep religious faith was the bedrock of her extraordinary courage, providing her with an unshakeable conviction that God was guiding her dangerous missions along the Underground Railroad. The severe head injury she suffered as a teenager — when an overseer hurled a two-pound lead weight at another enslaved person and struck her instead — left her with narcoleptic episodes and vivid dream-visions that she understood as divine communications directing her path. Throughout her rescue missions in the 1850s, she relied on prayer, spiritual intuition, and an intimate knowledge of the Maryland landscape to navigate by night through swamps, forests, and hostile territory. Her faith sustained her not only during the Underground Railroad years but also during her service as a scout, spy, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, where in June 1863 she became the first woman to lead an armed military raid — the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina that liberated over 700 enslaved people.
"I always told God, 'I'm going to hold steady on to you, and you've got to see me through.'"
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"'Twant me, 'twas the Lord. I always told him, 'I trust to you. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,' and he always did."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I never met with any person, of any color, who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken direct to her soul."
Thomas Garrett describing Tubman, quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I said to the Lord, 'I'm going to hold steady on to you, and I know you'll see me through.'"
Recounted by Tubman to Ednah Dow Cheney, as recorded in the freedmen's record, 1865
"Oh Lord! You've been with me in six troubles, don't desert me in the seventh!"
Tubman's prayer before a rescue mission -- quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"I had my jubilee three years before emancipation. God set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free."
Attributed to Tubman -- on her belief that God ordained her freedom before the law recognized it
"God's time is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
Tubman Quotes on Courage and Perseverance
Tubman's legendary perseverance was evident in every aspect of her life, from the physical endurance required to lead fugitives through hundreds of miles of hostile territory to her decades-long fight for recognition and a military pension after the Civil War. During her Underground Railroad missions, she traveled by night, used coded songs to communicate with passengers, and carried a revolver — reportedly telling any fugitive who wanted to turn back that they would go on or die, because a returnee could betray the entire network. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she established a home for elderly and indigent African Americans, funded largely through her own lectures and the support of abolitionists like William Seward. Despite her monumental contributions to American freedom, she did not receive a military pension until 1899 — and even then was granted only $20 per month as a widow of a veteran rather than for her own extraordinary service.
"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going."
Attributed to Tubman -- her instruction to fugitives on the Underground Railroad
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."
Widely attributed to Tubman -- on the power within every individual
"I had seen their tears and sighs, and I had heard their groans, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"Quakers almost always sent me on to the next station, and I thank them for all they did for me and for my people."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I was so tired I just dropped down and went to sleep. They could have walked over me; I would not have cared."
Describing exhaustion on the road to freedom -- quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"You'll be free or die a slave!"
Tubman's warning to fugitives who wavered -- quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
Tubman Quotes on Justice and Legacy
Tubman's vision of justice encompassed not only the abolition of slavery but also women's suffrage, care for the elderly, and the full recognition of Black Americans' contributions to the nation. In her later years in Auburn, New York, she worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and other suffragists, attending women's rights conventions and speaking about the interconnected struggles for racial and gender equality. In 1903 she donated a parcel of her own land to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to establish the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, which opened in 1908 and served as a refuge for elderly African Americans who had nowhere else to turn. Her legacy endures not only in her Underground Railroad heroism but in the 2016 decision by the U.S. Treasury to place her portrait on the twenty-dollar bill — making her the first woman and first African American to be featured on U.S. paper currency.
"I think there's many a slaveholder'll get to Heaven. They don't know no better. They acts up to the light they have."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them."
Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"Now I've been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave."
Quoted in Benjamin Drew, The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada, 1856
"I go to prepare a place for you."
Tubman's last recorded words before her death, March 10, 1913 -- reported in the Auburn Citizen
"I can't die but once; and I declare to the Almighty that I will be free, or I will lose my life."
Attributed to Tubman -- on her refusal to accept the permanence of slavery
Harriet Tubman Quotes on Freedom
Harriet Tubman's quotes on freedom carry the weight of lived experience — she escaped slavery herself and then returned to the South thirteen times to lead roughly seventy enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Her words on freedom are not abstract philosophy but the hard-won wisdom of a woman who risked her life for liberty.
"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."
Sarah H. Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, 1869
"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."
Attributed to Harriet Tubman
"There was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death."
As told to Sarah H. Bradford
"I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom."
Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People, 1886
"I grew up like a neglected weed — ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it."
As told to Benjamin Drew, The Refugee, 1856
Frequently Asked Questions About Harriet Tubman
How many people did Harriet Tubman rescue on the Underground Railroad?
Tubman (c. 1822-1913) personally led approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom over 13 missions on the Underground Railroad between 1850 and 1860. She never lost a single passenger, earning her the nickname 'Moses.' Slaveholders offered a $40,000 reward for her capture.
What was Tubman's role in the Civil War?
She served as a spy, scout, nurse, and military commander for the Union Army. She became the first woman to lead an armed assault in the Civil War when she guided the Combahee River Raid on June 2, 1863, freeing more than 700 enslaved people.
Why is Tubman being placed on the $20 bill?
In 2016, the U.S. Treasury announced Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, making her the first African American and first woman on U.S. paper currency. The project has faced delays but remains officially planned, recognizing her as one of America's greatest heroes.
Related Quote Collections
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- Rosa Parks Quotes — Courage and resistance
- John Lewis Quotes — Freedom struggle
- Nelson Mandela Quotes — Liberation from oppression