But the grim visage of slavery can assume no smiles which can fascinate the partially enlightened slave, into a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of the desirableness of liberty.
Douglass argues that even the most benign forms of slavery cannot mask its inherent cruelty or extinguish an enslaved person's longing for liberty.
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No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.