Frederick Douglass: “With him, it is literally a word and a blow, and, in most cases, the blow comes first.”

Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.

My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.

Food to the indolent is poison, not sustenance.

Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.