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If there is no struggle there is no progress.

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Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

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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, awa...more

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My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the ...more

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Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

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I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

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There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

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To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihil...more

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Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

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What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and...more

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Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters bef...more

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The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and w...more

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The frequent hearing of my mistress readingthe bible--for she often read aloud when herhusband was absent--soon awakened mycuriosity in respect to thi...more

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At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon the slave and slaveholder.

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Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.