Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe

In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky-her grand old woods-her fertile fields-her beautiful rivers-her mighty lakes and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked when I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slave-holding and wrong; When I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten That her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing

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

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

If there is no struggle, there is no progress

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

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

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress

A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery