Frederick Douglass Quotes

Frederick Douglass (41)

Birth:	February, 1818
Death:	20th February, 1895
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Abolitionist, Author, Diplomat, Editor

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Births

• 1960 - Eric Brown
• 1865 - Pieter Zeeman
• 1938 - Tom T. Hall
• 1967 - Poppy Z. Brite
• 1973 - Demetri Martin

Deaths

• 1919 - Madame C. J. Walker
• 1948 - Witold Pilecki
• 1993 - Vincent Price
• 1899 - Rosa Bonheur
• 2007 - Charles Nelson Reilly

• The church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors…. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by these Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done!

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Writing, Confirm, Together

• Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Freedom, Struggle

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Gentle, Storm

• 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

  Topics in Self Respect

  Tags in Myself, Ridicule

• I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Prayed

• People are asking me about the race problem…. I know of no race problem. The great problem that confronts the American people to-day is a national problem — whether this great nation of ours is great enough to live up to its own convictions, carry out its own declaration of independence, and execute the provisions of its own constitution.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Racism

  Tags in Problem, Independence, Great

• The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Man

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Power

  Tags in Nothing, Never

• Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Injustice, Continue

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Understood, Great, Nation

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Insult

  Tags in Gentleman

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Learning, Dangerous

• A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Character, Things

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Present, False

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Work

  Tags in People, Responsibility

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Advantage, Slaves

• At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Argument, Needed

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Free, Born

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Republican, Freedom

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Found, Wanted