Poverty, ignorance and degradation are the combined evils, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people of the US.

The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.

The mind does not take its complexion from the skin.

Self-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.

Some know the value of education by having it. I know it's value by not having it.

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.

I will unite with anyone to do good, but with no one to do harm.