Frederick Douglass: “If life is more than breath, and the “quick round of blood,” I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life.”

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

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.

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.

It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.