Jerry Barker Quotes

“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”

“Jerry kept us very clean, and gave us as much change of food as he could, and always plenty of it; and not only that, but he always gave us plenty of clean fresh water, which he allowed to stand by us both night and day, except of course when we came in warm.”

“And there are a good many curious things said in the New Testament about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one of them.”

“If a man gives way to his temper, and speaks evil of his neighbor, and does not pay his debts, he is not religious, I don’t care how much he goes to church.”

“Real religion is the best and truest thing in the world, and the only thing that can make a man really happy or make the world we live in any better.”

“every man must look after his own soul;”

“If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without;”

“Well, a man who gets rich by that trade may be all very well in some ways, but he is blind as to what workingmen want; I could not in my conscience send him up to make the laws. I dare say they’ll be angry, but every man must do what he thinks to be the best for his country.”

“My boy, I hope you will always defend your sister, and give anybody who insults her a good thrashing--that is as it should be;”

“My boy, Liberty does not come from colors, they only show party, and all the liberty you can get out of them is, liberty to get drunk at other people’s expense, liberty to ride to the poll in a dirty old cab, liberty to abuse any one that does not wear your color, and to shout yourself hoarse at what you only half-understand--that’s your liberty!”

“An election is a very serious thing; at least it ought to be, and every man ought to vote according to his conscience, and let his neighbor do the same.”

but it seems to me that the innocent always suffer;

“I had hard work at it for several weeks; you see I never did get drunk, but I found that I was not my own master, and that when the craving came on it was hard work to say ‘no’.

″...sometimes I had to say over and over to myself, ‘Give up the drink or lose your soul! Give up the drink or break Polly’s heart!‘”