Frederick Douglass

It must stand entire, or it does not stand at all.

I never met with a slave who could tell me how old he was.

Education being among the menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against.

In spite of Master Thomas, and, I may say, in spite of myself, also, I continued to think, and worse still, to think almost exclusively about the injustice and wickedness of slavery.

I always felt uncomfortable, after having received anything in this way, for I feared that the giving me a few cents, might, possibly, ease his conscience, and make him feel himself a pretty honorable robber, after all!

Once thoroughly broken down, who is he that can repair the damage?

The fact, that he gave me any part of my wages, was proof that he suspected that I had a right to the whole of them.

The practice, from week to week, of openly robbing me of all my earnings, kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me.

Her noble soul was overthrown; but, he that overthrew it did not, himself, escape the consequences.

A person of some consequence here in the north, sometimes designated father, is literally abolished in slave law and slave practice.

He should be left to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormentors, ever ready to snatch, from his infernal grasp, his trembling prey.

Such is my detestation of slavery, that I would keep the merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave.