“The ballot is the only safety.”

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

A man is worked on by what he works on.

There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.

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.

If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it’d be a travesty.

There is a subset of Democrats who tend to mis-fill out ballots. The way you mark the ballot is like an S.A.T. – you fill in the circle. And the subset of people who tend to, like, put a check there instead, or an X, or fill it out wrong.

I think the elections have gone well, although there is so much insecurity in Iraq. So far during the counting of ballots.

If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work – because if they don’t, they won’t be around the next time the ballot box is open.

If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work — because if they don’t, they won’t be around the next time the ballot box is open.

First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

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.

I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ask for the ballot for the Negro and not for the woman.