Frederick Douglass

I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die.

He only can understand the effect of this combat on my spirit, who has himself incurred something, hazarded something, in repelling the unjust and cruel aggressions of a tyrant.

A man without force is without the essential dignity of humanity.

Covey, undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is, was the turning-point in my “life as a slave.” It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own…

I had drawn blood from him, and should even without this satisfaction have been victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to prevent his injuring me.

The fighting madness had come upon me, and I found my strong fingers firmly attached to the throat of the tyrant, as heedless of consequences, at the moment, as if we stood as equals before the law.

I now forgot all about my roots, and remembered my pledge to stand up in my own defense.

Life in Baltimore, when most oppressive, was a paradise to this.

All my outward relations were against me; I must stay here and starve, or go home to Covey’s and have my flesh torn to pieces and my spirit humbled under the cruel lash of Covey.

I would fain pray; but doubts arising, partly from my neglect of the means of grace, and partly from the sham religion which everywhere prevailed, cast in my mind a doubt upon all religion, and led me to the conviction that prayers were…

May the reader never know what it is to spend such a night as was that to me, which heralded my return to the den of horrors from which I had made a temporary escape.

Sleep does not always come to the relief of the weary in body, and broken in spirit; especially is it so when past troubles only foreshadow coming disasters.