A Quote by Frederick Douglass

[John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.

Frederick Douglass

Quote Topics

Brown Burning Cause Could Fight Freedom His Infinitely John John Brown Light Mine Slave Speak Sun Superior Taper Zeal

Quote Author

Frederick Douglass
American - Author
February 14, 1818 - February 20, 1895

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.

George Haven Putnam

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

Frederick Douglass

One of the songs that stayed in my head that I really considered a lot was an old folk song called 'John Brown' - not the abolitionist John Brown, but the one that Bob Dylan has covered and sung before. It's about a boy coming home from the Civil War, or maybe World War I even, and about his Mother seeing him all destroyed.

Quentin Tarantino

John Brown was one of my longtime heroes, and it was with no little amount of temerity that I accepted the role. There are some things I am hesitant about, and playing a hero of mine is one of them.

Sterling Hayden

John Brown was the abolitionist to end all abolitionists. People thought he was crazy. He was like John Coltrane playing free jazz, exhausting all possibilities in his approach to harmony and improvisation.

James McBride

When I heard the truth about my name was not Cassius Clay, like I knew a black man in America named John Hawkins. Now, you know who John Hawkins was.He was a slave trader from England. But the white people of that time, if one had five slaves and his name was Jones, they would be called Jones' property. [...] Now that I'm free, now that I'm no longer a slave, then I want a name of my ancestors.

Muhammad Ali

If I had to write down the most important people in the history of this planet, No.1 would be (abolitionist) John Brown. Why? Because he's a white man who said he would die for the cause, because they could take him, but they weren't going to take his grandchildren. That brother was beautiful.

Dick Gregory

Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty! Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty: Love given willingly, full and free, Love for love's sake - as mine to thee. Duty's a slave that keeps the keys, But Love, the master, goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please - just as he please.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

John Cena's match with me, the one that kind of got him hired with WWE, I remember they were there to look at John, obviously. He looked great - he was like the blue-chipper - and John was a good friend of mine, so I had no problem whatsoever helping him kind of highlight and do his thing.

Samoa Joe

That slave narratives existed at all implied a satisfactory conclusion to the journey - the attainment of literacy, the escape to the place where one could reflect on the experience of bondage and the flight to freedom, and, in the early days of the slave trade, the conversion to Christianity.

Darryl Pinckney

Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state.

Elizabeth Van Lew

This is the difference between slavery and freedom. The slave must do what his superior orders him to do, but the free citizen-and this is what freedom means-is in a position to choose his own way of life.

Ludwig von Mises

Strangely enough, the legend of John Brown, who was clearly crazy, helped the abolitionist cause and is thought to have precipitated the American Civil War.

Justin Cartwright

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

Mahatma Gandhi

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.