Booker T. Washington: “When you make yourself master of these humble positions, you will find that the calls to higher places will come to you.”

Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play.

Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution.

I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.

I can scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time.