Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
They who study mankind with a whip in their hands will always go wrong.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
Every one of us should be ashamed to be free while his brother is a slave.
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.
A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnamity.
I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Despite of it all, the Negro remains... cool, strong, imperturbable, and cheerful.
Some know the value of education by having it. I know it's value by not having it.
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
In life you don't get everything you pay for, but you must pay for everything you get.
What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!!
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government.
A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine
Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document!
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.
Right is of no Sex-Truth is of no Color-God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.
I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.
There is not a man beneath the canopy of Heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
I glory in the conflict, that I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain.
If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.
Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place.
The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity.
Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.
Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. . . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . .
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected.
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
Civil war was not a mere strife for territory and dominion, but a contest of civilization against barbarism.
Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or overseers.