15 quotes
I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Up From Slavery (1901)
My whole life has largely been one of surprises.
Up From Slavery (1901)
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.
Up From Slavery (1901)
The home life of the English seems to me to be about as perfect as anything can be. Everything moves like clockwork.
Up From Slavery (1901)
Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.
Up From Slavery (1901)
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
Up From Slavery (1901)
Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.
Up From Slavery (1901)
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
Up From Slavery (1901)
No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward.
Up From Slavery (1901)
I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
Up From Slavery (1901)
I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.
Up From Slavery (1901)
In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
Up From Slavery (1901)
Cast down your bucket where you are.
Up From Slavery (1901)
The English servant expects, as a rule, to be nothing but a servant, and so he perfects himself in the art to a degree that no class of servants in America has yet reached. In our country the servant expects to become, in a few years, a "master" himself.
Up From Slavery (1901)
From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
Up From Slavery (1901)