Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning.
Frederick DouglassWhere justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick DouglassThe simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
Frederick DouglassTo suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Frederick DouglassSelf-Made Men are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.
Frederick Douglass