“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.

The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.

The destiny of the colored American is the destiny of America.

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.

To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

The mind does not take its complexion from the skin.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box.

A woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments.

Oppression makes a wise man mad.

I lay awake thinking about how none of it had to happen for me to get to this point; and how I’m glad I got there, anyway.

Your ever after could start tomorrow. Keep holding on.

And I’m bruised but never broken.

Now if only at my worst had I known I was about to be at my best.

You are whole and complete all on your own everything you need is within you peel away the layers come home.

Don’t let this dissipate. Don’t let this evaporate into thin air. Don’t let this go.

No matter how hard these waves crash they will not break me.

In order for man to master his life, he must first rule himself.