The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing.

Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.

Experience proves that those are oftenest abused who can be abused with the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.

A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.

I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.

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

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to SPEAK.