- Newton Knight: From this day forward we declare the land north of Pascagoula Swamp, south of enterprise and east to the Pearl River to the Alabama border, to be a Free State of Jones. And as such we do hereby proclaim and affirm the following principles. Number one, no man ought to stay poor so another man can get rich. Number two, no man ought to tell another man what you got to live for or what he's got to die for. Number three, what you put in the ground is yours to tend and harvest and there ain't no man ought to be able to take that away from you. Number four, every man is a man. If you walk on two legs, you're a man. It's as simple as that.
- Newton Knight: [eulogizing] These boys... These young men... They was your friends, your cousins, your brothers and your kin. But to those soldiers who didn't know 'em, they was just niggers. They was just somebody else's nigger. So somehow, some way or sometime, everybody is just somebody else's nigger. Mr. Moses, are you a nigger?
- Moses: No, I'm not.
- Newton Knight: What are you?
- Moses: A free man, captain.
- Newton Knight: Well, why's that?
- Moses: 'Cause you cannot own a child of God.
- Newton Knight: No, you cannot, can you? You can own a horse, you can own a mule or cow or an ox, but you... You cannot own a child of God.
- Ward: What are you doin', nigger? That ain't for you. Put it back. Put it back, nigger.
- Moses: How you ain't?
- Ward, Moses: What?
- Moses: I said, how you ain't?
- Ward: How I ain't what?
- Newton Knight: What he says, Ward, is how you ain't a nigger. I mean, they just pick cotton for 'em. You-You was willin' to get killed for 'em.
- Lt. Barbour: [about little girls aiming guns] They gonna shoot me?
- Newton Knight: Last time I checked, the gun don't care who's pulling the trigger.
- Newton Knight: No man ought to tell another man what he's gotta live for or what he's got to die for.
- Jasper Collins: You know they shoot deserters, don't you?
- Newton Knight: Hell, they shoot everybody around here anyway. It don't seem to make no difference where the bullet comes from.
- Moses: [looking at his dog bite] Let me see that there.
- Newton Knight: Aw, it ain't that bad.
- Moses: You must be pretty brave then. Y'all must taste like we do, the way he latched onto you.
- Moses: Deserted. How come?
- Newton Knight: It ain't my fight, you know? Don't own no slaves. Ain't gonna die so they can get rich selling cotton.
- Moses: That's why we left, too.
- Newton Knight: [about new voting rights law] It ain't just for us, all right? It is for everybody. Black, white, rich, poor. It's for our oppressors who don't even know what's good for 'em yet. It's for everybody who came before us who couldn't even read this ballot. It's for our children, who, Lord willin', won't have to shed blood for it like we have. And it's for their children, and their children's children.
- Rachel: I don't want my boy to get lynched. Or beat. I want him to go to a school. I don't want him to drop his eyes every time a white man walk by. I don't want him to be a "boy" no more once he turn into a man.
- Mary: Tax collectors are coming around here taking everything. We'll have nothing for the winter.
- Newton Knight: [Knight kneels down and holds up his rifle] Girls, do you know how to shoot one of these?
- Newton Knight: [pulling off wounded soldier's coat] Let's get this off you. If they think you're an officer, they'll fix you sooner. Yeah, they'll fix you.
- Newton Knight: It seems that we don't got no country on either side. And that's all right. I guess we're kind of our own country. That's right. And if we're honest about it, hadn't we been our own country for a long time?
- Newton Knight: I'm tired of it. You, me, all of it! We're all out there dying so they can stay rich!
- Colonel Robert Lowry: They pulled all of Jones, Jasper, Perry and half of Smith County.
- Chester: How is that even possible?
- Newton Knight: Lyin' like that? Don't it make you dizzy?
- Moses: Oh, no. It don't bother me now.
- Newton Knight: I guess you get used to anything.
- Moses: No, you can't.
- Rachel: The winds are shifting and you can't fight it this time.
- Newton Knight: There's plenty left to fight for.