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1 " How do you feel," said a friend to me, "when you are hooted and jeered on the street on account of your color?" "I feel as if an ass had kicked, but had hit nobody," was my answer. "
― Frederick Douglass , Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
2 " For no man who lives at all lives unto himself. He either helps or hinders all who are in anywise connected to him. "
3 " stars shall fall from heaven, "
4 " Men who live by robbing their fellow men of their labor and liberty have forfeited their right to know anything of the thoughts, feelings, or purposes of those whom they rob and plunder. They have by the single act of slaveholding voluntarily placed themselves beyond the laws of justice and honor, and have become only fitted for companionship with thieves and pirates - the common enemies of God and of all mankind. "
5 " A man’s troubles are always half disposed of when he finds endurance the only alternative. "
6 " none to molest them or make them afraid. "
7 " The cruel injustice, the victorious crime, and the helplessness of innocence, led me to ask in my ignorance and weakness: Where is now the God of justice and mercy? and why have these wicked men the power thus to trample upon our rights, and to insult our feelings? and yet in the next moment came the consoling thought, "the day of the oppressor will come at last. "
8 " Of one thing I could be glad: not one of my dear friends upon whom I had brought this great calamity, reproached me, either by word or look, for having led them into it. We were a band of brothers, and never dearer to each other than now. The thought which gave us the most pain was the probable separation which would now take place in case we were sold off to the far south as we were likely to do. "
9 " He was whipped oftener who was whipped easiest. "
10 " [T]o guard, protect, and maintain his liberty, the freedman should have the ballot; that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the Ballot-box, the Jury-box, and the Cartridge-box... "
11 " A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box. "
12 " It is the autobiography of a slave who became and advisor to President Lincoln and the diplomatic representative of the United States to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Hence, this narrative of his life has inspired Negroes and other disadvantaged Americans to believe that, despite the imperfections of American democracy, a self-made man many aspire to greatness. "
13 " Unlike some slave narratives and indeed, some messages of Presidents of the United States, Douglass's works were his own. "