Frederick Douglass

The general sense of decency that must pervade such a population, does much to check and prevent those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty, and those dark crimes without a name, almost openly perpetrated on the plantation.

Here was a broad road of destruction to slavery, which, before, had been looked upon as a wall of security by slaveholders.

Slaves escaping, until now, had taken to the woods; they had never dreamed of profaning and abusing the waters of the noble Chesapeake, by making them the highway from slavery to freedom.

In learning to read, therefore, I am not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master, as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress.

It has called into exercise among the colored people, the hunted ones, a spirit of manly resistance well calculated to surround them with a bulwark of sympathy and respect hitherto unknown.

He was furious at the thought of such a piece of high-handed theft, as we were about to perpetrate the stealing of our own bodies and souls!

The prospect, from that point, did look about as dark as any that ever cast its gloom over the vision of the anxious, out-looking, human spirit.

That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.

The promise had but one fault; it seemed too good to be true.

Lead and steel are the only arguments that they understand.

Very well,” thought I; “knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.

To talk to those imps about justice and mercy, would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and tigers.