Frederick Douglass: “The fear of punishment is the sole motive for any sort of industry, with him.”

His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.

Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.

Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.

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.