Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity…a shelter under…which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

I glory in the conflict, that I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain.

Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever... I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.