Frederick Douglass Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Frederick Douglass quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world's ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin? — Frederick Douglass

Allow us the dignity to fight for our own freedom — Frederick Douglass

No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant. — Frederick Douglass

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. — Frederick Douglass

Our destiny is largely in our hands. — Frederick Douglass

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. — Frederick Douglass

This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms. — Frederick Douglass

Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. — Frederick Douglass

What is possible for me is possible for you. — Frederick Douglass

They who study mankind with a whip in their hands will always go wrong. — Frederick Douglass

The sunlight that has brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. — Frederick Douglass

It is the mission of the printer to diffuse light and knowledge by a judicious intermingling of black with white. — Frederick Douglass

Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document! — Frederick Douglass

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress. — Frederick Douglass

Slavery appears such a relatively mild business that one begins to wonder why Frederick Douglass and so many others ever tried to escape. — Dinesh D'Souza

As Frederick Douglass said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected. — Frederick Douglass

We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions ... and shall rise and fall with Americans. — Frederick Douglass

In every era going back to Lincoln with Frederick Douglass, presidents talk to those that were leading at that time. — Al Sharpton

Without Struggle There Is No Success — Frederick Douglass

Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere — Frederick Douglass

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

Oppression makes a wise man mad. — Frederick Douglass

Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren — Frederick Douglass

I hear the mournful wail of millions! — Frederick Douglass

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. — Frederick Douglass

You have to take power. No one gives it. — Frederick Douglass

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

Frederick Douglass had to teach himself how to read before standing up to defeat slavery. — Juan Williams

For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage. — Frederick Douglass

I glory in conflict that I may hereafter exult in victory. — Frederick Douglass

I ask you ... to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall ... — Frederick Douglass

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

Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places. — Frederick Douglass

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

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

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. — Frederick Douglass

My hopes were never brighter than now. — Frederick Douglass

Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. — Frederick Douglass

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man. — Frederick Douglass

He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest. — Frederick Douglass

Without a struggle, there can be no progress. — Frederick Douglass

Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude. — Frederick Douglass

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

I escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist and speaker. — Frederick Douglass

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

In all the relations of life and death, we are met by the color line. — Frederick Douglass

Once you learn to read, you will forever be free. — Frederick Douglass

Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage. — Frederick Douglass

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. — Frederick Douglass

I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. — Frederick Douglass

Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, it was enough to accept God as a father, to regard slavery as a crime. I — Frederick Douglass

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done. — Frederick Douglass

Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother. — Frederick Douglass

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed. — Frederick Douglass

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. — Frederick Douglass

Most successful one was that of tarring his fence all around; after which, if a slave was caught — Frederick Douglass

We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men. — Frederick Douglass

Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable. — Frederick Douglass

The soul that is within me no man can degrade. — Frederick Douglass

Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out. — Frederick Douglass

Liberty for all; chains for none. — Frederick Douglass

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

I was in the midst of an ocean of my fellow-men, and yet a perfect stranger to every one. — Frederick Douglass

Every one of us should be ashamed to be free while his brother is a slave. — Frederick Douglass

Abolition of slavery had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life — Frederick Douglass

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. — Frederick Douglass

Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest. — Frederick Douglass

It was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. — Frederick Douglass

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. — Frederick Douglass

Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding, — Frederick Douglass

I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. — Frederick Douglass

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. — Frederick Douglass

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

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. — Frederick Douglass

A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnamity. — Frederick Douglass

Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave. — Frederick Douglass

The opposite of compromise is character. — Frederick Douglass

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

The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. — Frederick Douglass

Experience is a keen teacher; — Frederick Douglass

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe. — Frederick Douglass

I had as well be killed running as die standing — Frederick Douglass

The author said Frederick Douglass described himself as a "graduate" of slavery with the marks of his diploma on his back. — Harold Holzer

it was worth half-cent to kill a "nigger", and a half-cent to bury one. — Frederick Douglass

We were both victims to the same overshadowing evil - she, as mistress, I, as slave. — Frederick Douglass

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. — Frederick Douglass

The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America. — Frederick Douglass

I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of being the best master I ever had, till I became my own master. — Frederick Douglass

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

The mind does not take its complexion from the skin ... — Frederick Douglass

I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value. — Frederick Douglass

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future. — Frederick Douglass

A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people. — Frederick Douglass

I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave. — Frederick Douglass

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety. — Frederick Douglass

I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. — Frederick Douglass

Let us render the tyrant no aid. — Frederick Douglass

I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. — Frederick Douglass

It's a poor rule that won't work both ways. — Frederick Douglass