Jan 1, 1881
I found that the success of a lecturer depends more upon the quality of his stock in store, than the amount.
Frederick Douglass
The Public Record
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was "the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century".
gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1881
It proved, as to its immediate effect, a great mistake, for my carefully studied and written address, full of learned quotations, fell dead at my feet, while a few remarks I made extemporaneously at collation, were enthusiastically…
Jan 1, 1881
I had after all acquired (a very unusual thing) a little more knowledge and aptitude fitting me for the new condition of things than I knew, and had a deeper hold upon public attention than I had supposed.
Jan 1, 1881
A man in the situation I found myself, has not only to divest himself of the old, which is never easily done, but to adjust himself to the new, which is still more difficult.
Jan 1, 1881
Outside the question of slavery my thoughts had not been much directed, and I could hardly hope to make myself useful in any other cause than that to which I had given the best twenty-five years of my life.
Jan 1, 1881
My public life and labors had unfitted me for the pursuits of my earlier years, and yet had not prepared me for more congenial and higher employment.
Jan 1, 1881
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.
Jan 1, 1881
I felt I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life; my school was broken up, my church disbanded, and the beloved congregation dispersed, never to come together again.
Jan 1, 1881
My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life), was slightly tinged with a feeling of sadness.
Jan 1, 1881
A simple leaden bullet, and a few grains of powder, in the shortest limit of time, are sufficient to blast and ruin all that is precious in human existence, not alone of the murdered, but of the murderer.
Jan 1, 1881
But, alas! what are all good and great qualities; what are human hopes and human happiness to the revengeful hand of an assassin?
Jan 1, 1881
His eyes had in them the tenderness of motherhood, and his mouth and other features the highest perfection of a genuine manhood.