100 Quotes by Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, a towering figure in American history, emerged as a leading abolitionist, writer, and orator during the tumultuous years leading up to and during the Civil War. Born into slavery, Douglass escaped to freedom and became a fierce advocate for the abolition of slavery and the rights of African Americans. His autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," detailed his harrowing experiences and became a powerful tool in the fight against slavery. Douglass' eloquent speeches, including his famous "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" address, challenged the hypocrisy of a nation that championed liberty while perpetuating slavery. After the Civil War, he continued to champion civil rights and suffrage, working alongside prominent activists and suffragettes. Douglass' legacy endures as a testament to the power of education, resilience, and the unwavering commitment to justice and equality.
Frederick Douglass Quotes
What to the Slave is the 4th of July. (Meaning)
I had as well be killed running as die standing (Quote Meaning)
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave. (Meaning)
Right is of no sex, truth is of no color. (Quote Meaning)
If there's no struggle, there's no progress. (Meaning)
I hear the mournful wail of millions! (Quote Meaning)
The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. (Meaning)
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. (Quote Meaning)
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing the ground. (Meaning)
You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
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.
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
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.
There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution
Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.
Without a struggle, there can be no progress. (Quote Meaning)
"In a composite Nation like ours, made up of almost every variety of the human family, there should be, as before the Law, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no black, no white, but one country, one citizenship equal rights and a common destiny for all.
A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown, without delay."
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. (Meaning)
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. (Quote Meaning)
Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. Hey never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace.
A slave is someone who sits down, and waits for someone to free them.
A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. (Meaning)
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.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. (Quote Meaning)
Without culture there can be no growth; without exertion, no acquisition; without friction, no polish; without labor, no knowledge; without action, no progress; and without conflict, no victory. The man who lies down a fool at night, hoping that he will waken wise in the morning, will rise up in the morning as he laid down in the evening.
People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get. (Meaning)
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. (Quote Meaning)
In life you don't get everything you pay for, but you must pay for everything you get.
For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
I will unite with anyone to do good, but with no one to do harm.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a great man - too great to be small in anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box.
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. (Quote Meaning)
There is a class of people who seem to think that if a man should fall overboard into the sea with a Bible in his pocket it would hardly be possible to drown. I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. (Meaning)
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
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.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. (Quote Meaning)
One by one I have seen obstacles removed, errors corrected, prejudices softened, proscriptions relinquished, and my people advancing in all the elements that go to make up the sum of the general welfare. And I remember that God reigns in eternity, and that whatever delays, whatever disappointments and discouragements may come, truth, justice, liberty and humanity will ultimately prevail.
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery. (Meaning)
The soul that is within me no man can degrade. (Quote Meaning)
My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success... All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonour, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor.
Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.
When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world.
[A] woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.
Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places.
The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.
What is possible for me is possible for you. (Quote Meaning)
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.
I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.
No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant.
I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. (Meaning)
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all of the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored mans cause than those of the Democratic party.
Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done. (Quote Meaning)
Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude. (Meaning)
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
He who would be free must strike the first blow. (Quote Meaning)
Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . .
Oppression makes a wise man mad. (Meaning)
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. (Quote Meaning)
Fortune may crowd a man's life with fortunate circumstances and happy opportunities, but they will, as we all know, avail him nothing unless he makes a wise and vigorous use of them.
The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.
The opposite of compromise is character.
If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.
The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression.
To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. (Meaning)
Neither we, nor any other people, will ever be respected till we respect ourselves and we will never respect ourselves till we have the means to live respectfully.
In the struggle for justice, the only reward is the opportunity to be in the struggle. You can't expect that you're going to have it tomorrow. You just have to keep working on it.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man. (Quote Meaning)
Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document!
You have to take power. No one gives it.
There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers , but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels.
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.
Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.
The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?
From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom. This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.
In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.
Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.
It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.
The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people.
The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider it purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? it is neither.
The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.
[...] endless action and reaction. Those beautifully rounded pebbles which you gather on the sand and which you hold in your hand and marvel at their exceeding smoothness, were chiseled into their varies and graceful forms by the ceaseless action of countless waves. Nature is herself a great worker and never tolerates, without certain rebuke, any contradiction to her wise example. Inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death.
Some know the value of education by having it. I know it's value by not having it.
If the Negro knows enough to pay taxes to support the government, he knows enough to vote; taxation and representation should go together. If he knows enough to shoulder a musket and fight for the flag, fight for the government, he knows enough to vote.
A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
A great man, tender of heart, strong of nerve, boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no motive apart from his country.
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. (Meaning)
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.
Every one of us should be ashamed to be free while his brother is a slave.
The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve.
I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity…a shelter under…which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection
I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value.
No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling and action of others, and who has himself no means in his own hands for guarding, protecting, defending and maintaining that liberty
Our destiny is largely in our hands. (Quote Meaning)
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustices and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
I hear the mournful wail of millions.
We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!!
Let us render the tyrant no aid.
The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America.
I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.
A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
I recognize the Republican Party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever... I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place.
It's a poor rule that won't work both ways.
I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.
One and God make a majority. (Meaning)
The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future too, with hope in it. (Quote Meaning)
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people. (Meaning)
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
The more men you make free, the more freedom is strengthened, and the more men you give an interest in the welfare and safety of the State, the greater is the security of the State.
The mind does not take its complexion from the skin.
The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.
Right is of no Sex-Truth is of no Color-God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.
Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere (Quote Meaning)
We succeed, not alone by the laborious exertions of our faculties, be they small or great, but by the regular, thoughtful and systematic exercise of them.
Once you read, you will be free forever.
Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.
Poverty, ignorance and degradation are the combined evils, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people of the US.
Our community belongs to us and whether it is mean or majestic, whether arrayed in glory or covered in shame, we cannot but share its character and destiny.
Viewing the man from the genuine abolitionist ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed cold, tardy, weak and unequal to the task. But, viewing him from the sentiments of his people, which as a statesman he was bound to respect, then his actions were swift, bold, radical and decisive. Taking the man in the whole, balancing the tremendous magnitude of the situation, and the necessary means to ends, Infinite Wisdom has rarely sent a man into the world more perfectly suited to his mission than Abraham Lincoln.
Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God's truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.
We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.
My hopes were never brighter than now. (Meaning)
You degrade us and then ask why we are degraded. You shut our mouths and ask why we don't speak. You close your colleges and seminaries against us and then ask why we don't know.
Liberty for all; chains for none.
The District of Columbia is the one spot where there is no government for the people, of the people and by the people.
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.
A man is worked on by what he works on. (Quote Meaning)
Civil war was not a mere strife for territory and dominion, but a contest of civilization against barbarism.
Without struggle there is no Success.
― Frederick Douglass Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
