I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!

When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world.

We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.

The ballot is the only safety.

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.