Frederick Douglass

Outside the question of slavery my thoughts had not been much directed, and I could hardly hope to make myself useful in any other cause than that to which I had given the best twenty-five years of my life.

A man in the situation I found myself, has not only to divest himself of the old, which is never easily done, but to adjust himself to the new, which is still more difficult.

I never rise to speak before an American audience without something of the feeling that my failure or success will bring blame or benefit to my whole race.

Though slavery was abolished, the wrongs of my people were not ended.

No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling, and action of others; and who has himself no means in his own hands for guarding, protecting, defending, and maintaining that liberty.

The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only where there is power to make that law respected.

He was in a word literally turned loose naked, hungry, and destitute to the open sky.

The thought of paying cash for labor that they could formerly extort by the lash did not in anywise improve their disposition to the emancipated slave, or improve his own condition.

He had nothing left him but a slavery-distorted and diseased body, and lame and twisted limbs with which to fight the battle of life.

I, therefore, soon found that the negro had still a cause, and that he needed my voice and pen with others to plead for it.

To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.

To enslave men successfully and safely it is necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived.