“Every one of us should be ashamed to be free while his brother is a slave.”

I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. The resistance encountered now predicates hope.

The District of Columbia is the one spot where there is no government for the people, of the people and by the people.

Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever.

A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.

The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

The opposite of compromise is character.

I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world’s ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin?

Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.

Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.