Top 239 Quotes & Sayings by Frederick Douglass
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American author Frederick Douglass.
Last updated on December 25, 2024.
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.
One and God make a majority.
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
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.
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
What to the Slave is the 4th of July.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
That which is inhuman cannot be divine.
A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
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.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
There is not a man beneath the canopy of Heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
The opposite of compromise is character.
I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.
Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box.
In a composite Nation like ours, made up of almost every variety of the human family, there should be, as before the Law, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no black, no white, but one country, one citizenship equal rights and a common destiny for all.
A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown, without delay.
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution
Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.
I will unite with anyone to do good, but with no one to do harm.
You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
Everybody has asked the question, ... 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! You're doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, ... let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also.
A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
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.
A slave is someone who sits down, and waits for someone to free them.
Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. Hey never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace.
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. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places.
For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
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