Quotes by Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

— Frederick Douglass

Success

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.

— Frederick Douglass

Happiness

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.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

Freedom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Freedom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Education

I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

One and God make a majority.

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Hope

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

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Hope

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

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom

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

— Frederick Douglass

Wisdom