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

We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.

My hopes were never brighter than now.

Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.

I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value.

You have to take power. No one gives it.

Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.

A great man, tender of heart, strong of nerve, boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no motive apart from his country.

Some know the value of education by having it. I knew its value by not having it.

Our destiny is largely in our hands.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

What to the Slave is the 4th of July.

It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways.

The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.

Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.