“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.”

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

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.

The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.

The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.

The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.

I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we’re complicated.

Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.

In Harlem, I got all my black friends. But when I go downtown, I got black, white, Asian, Indian friends. There’s no borders, no barriers.

I have low self-esteem and I always have. Guys always cheated on me with women who were European-looking. You know, the long-hair type. Really beautiful women that left me thinking, ‘How I can I compete with that?’ Being a regular black girl wasn’t good enough.