Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. . . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . .

The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. ... All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... Your interference is doing him positive injury.

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.

Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.

Having despised us, it is not strange that Americans should seek to render us despicable; having enslaved us, it is natural that they should strive to prove us unfit for freedom; having denounced us as indolent, it is not strange that they should cripple our enterprises.