Frederick Douglass: “That plantation is a little nation of its own, having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs.”

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.

Food to the indolent is poison, not sustenance.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.

The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.