It was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.

The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve.

I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.

Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.

What is possible for me is possible for you.

[John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.