We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.
The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.
One and God make a majority.
I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.
I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free...
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
