Frederick Douglass

Conscience is, to the individual soul, and to society, what the law of gravitation is to the universe.

It is, then, the first business of the enslaver of men to blunt, deaden, and destroy the central principle of human responsibility.

What had I done, what had my parents done, that such a life as this should be mine?

The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it.

As the serpent-charmer of India is compelled to extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey before he is able to handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder must strike down the conscience of the slave before he can obtain the entire…

It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and sinful fellow-man.

Life, in itself, had almost become burdensome to me.

Its first aim is to destroy all sense of high moral and religious responsibility.

The first work of slavery is to mar and deface those characteristics of its victims which distinguish men from things, and persons from property.

On gaining my master’s store, I presented an appearance of wretchedness and woe, fitted to move any but a heart of stone.

One class of the population is too high to be reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to be cared for by the preacher.

It is only when we contemplate the slave as a moral and intellectual being, that we can adequately comprehend the unparalleled enormity of slavery, and the intense criminality of the slaveholder.