Frederick Douglass quotes - page 3

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. (Frederick Douglass)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
Frederick Douglass
In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.
Frederick Douglass
If we would reach a degree of civilization higher and grander than any yet attained, we should welcome to our ample continent all the nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples, and as fast as they learn our language and comprehend the duties of citizenship, we should incorporate them into the American body politic. The outspread wings of the American eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come.
Frederick Douglass
One and God make a majority.
Frederick Douglass
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
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
Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.
Frederick Douglass
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to 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)
Without Struggle There Is No Success.
Frederick Douglass
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
Frederick Douglass
I had as well be killed running as die standing.
Frederick Douglass
What to the Slave is the 4th of July.
Frederick Douglass
The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing.
Frederick Douglass
I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.
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
Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity.
Frederick Douglass
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.
Frederick Douglass
The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men. (Frederick Douglass)
Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.
Frederick Douglass
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Frederick Douglass
Shoot down the Confederacy and uphold the flag; the American flag.
Frederick Douglass
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
Frederick Douglass