If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning... . Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get.

Having despised us, it is not strange that Americans should seek to render us despicable; having enslaved us, it is natural that they should strive to prove us unfit for freedom; having denounced us as indolent, it is not strange that they should cripple our enterprises.

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

The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

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

The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America.

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

If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

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

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.