Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into … - Frederick Douglass

[There] was one idea, rule or principle, call it what you will, which entirely took possession of me, even in childhood, and which stood out strongly, invincible against every argument drawn from nature and scripture in favor of slavery. What was the idea, rule, or principle? This it was: Every man is the original, rightful, and absolute owner of his own body; or in other words, every man is himself, is his self, if you please, and belongs to himself, and can only part from his self ownership, by the commission of a crime.

The man who prays in secret is far more likely to be sincere than he who loves to pray standing in the street, or in the great congregation.

From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen.