Frederick Douglass: “Very much that was said to me in respect to my imperfect literary attainments, I felt to be most painfully true.”

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

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.

Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.