In life you don't get everything you pay for, but you must pay for everything you get.

A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.

Allow us the dignity to fight for our own freedom

...there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate Army...as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government...There were such soldiers at Manassas and they are probably there still.

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.

If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity.