Frederick Douglass

He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.

In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans.

They have, however, come not at the command of reason and persuasion, but by the sharp and terrible edge of the sword.

It came, not by the sword, but by the word; not by the brute force of numbers, but by the still small voice of truth; not by barricades, bayonets, and bloody revolution, but by peaceful agitation; not by divine interference, but by the…

It shows that men have in their own hands the peaceful means of putting all their moral and political enemies under their feet, and of making this world a healthy and happy dwelling-place, if they will faithfully and courageously use them.

The world needed just such a revelation of the power of conscience and of human brotherhood, one that overleaped the accident of color and of race, and set at naught the whisperings of prejudice.

Lincoln was not only a great President, but a GREAT MAN--too great to be small in anything.

Liberty, as the inestimable birthright of every man, converted every object into an asserter of this right.

I was grander upon my mother’s knee than a king upon his throne.

To me it has ever been a grief that I knew my mother so little, and have so few of her words treasured in my remembrance.

In view of this fact, I am happy to attribute any love of letters I may have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother--a woman who belonged to a race whose mental…

Young (21 years), strong, and active, and ambitious to do my full share, I soon made myself useful, and I think liked by the men who worked with me, though they were all white.