Frederick Douglass

The fact is, I never see much use in fighting, unless there is a reasonable probability of whipping somebody.

My anxiety arose from a sense of the consequences of failure.

To this fact the dear lady, no doubt, owed the excellent preservation of her natural goodness of heart, for slavery can change a saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon.

I felt as one may be supposed to feel before being led forth to be executed for some great offense.

Like most other men, we had done the talking part of our work, long and well; and the time had come to act as if we were in earnest, and meant to be as true in action as in words.

The supercilious contempt for the rights and feelings of the slave, and the petulance and bad humor which generally characterize slaveholding ladies, were all quite absent from kind “Miss” Sophia’s manner and bearing toward me.

It was too late to look back; and now was the time to go forward.

It was easy to resolve, but not so easy to act.

From my earliest recollections of serious matters, I date the entertainment of something like an ineffaceable conviction, that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and this conviction, like a word of living…

It was truly felt to be a matter of life and death with us; and we fully intended to fight as well as run, if necessity should occur for that extremity.

The glory of success, and the shame and confusion of failure, could not be matters of indifference to me.

If I have made any progress in knowledge; if I have cherished any honorable aspirations, or have, in any manner, worthily discharged the duties of a member of an oppressed people; this little circumstance must be allowed its due weight in…