Frederick Douglass

Once you read, you will be free forever.

— Frederick Douglass

I had as well be killed running as die standing

— Frederick Douglass

Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.

— Frederick Douglass

You have to take power. No one gives it.

— Frederick Douglass

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

— Frederick Douglass

I hear the mournful wail of millions!

— Frederick Douglass

What is possible for me is possible for you.

— Frederick Douglass

Without Struggle There Is No Success

— Frederick Douglass

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

— Frederick Douglass

... and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty.

— Frederick Douglass

Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places.

— Frederick Douglass

We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!!

— Frederick Douglass

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

— Frederick Douglass

When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.

— Frederick Douglass

Despite of it all, the Negro remains... cool, strong, imperturbable, and cheerful.

— Frederick Douglass

Some know the value of education by having it. I know it's value by not having it.

— Frederick Douglass

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the…

— Frederick Douglass

“And I remember that God reigns in eternity, and that whatever delays, whatever disappointments and discouragements may come, truth, justice, liberty, and…

— Frederick Douglass

It is the mission of the printer to diffuse light and knowledge by a judicious intermingling of black with white.

— Frederick Douglass

Money is the measure of morality, and the success or failure of slavery as a money-making system, determines with many whether...it should…

— Frederick Douglass

No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling and action of others, and who has himself…

— Frederick Douglass

Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here,…

— Frederick Douglass

In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I…

— Frederick Douglass

From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a…

— Frederick Douglass

Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, 'What shall we do with the Negro?'…

— Frederick Douglass

“I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among…

— Frederick Douglass

Having despised us, it is not strange that Americans should seek to render us despicable; having enslaved us, it is natural that…

— Frederick Douglass

The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add…

— Frederick Douglass

Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. Hey never have and never will... Each and every one of…

— Frederick Douglass

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes—a justifier of the…

— Frederick Douglass

The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did…

— Frederick Douglass

The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant…

— Frederick Douglass

I have one great political idea. . . . That idea is an old one. It is widely and generally assented to;…

— Frederick Douglass

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who…

— Frederick Douglass

“Such are the limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few…

— Frederick Douglass

“Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation,…

— Frederick Douglass

“Though the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adverse sentiment which…

— Frederick Douglass

“You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily…

— Frederick Douglass

“She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great grandmother…

— Frederick Douglass

“I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, - a justifier…

— Frederick Douglass