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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

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Frederick Douglass
Age: 77 †
Born: 1818
Born: February 14
Died: 1895
Died: February 20
Abolitionist
Autobiographer
Businessperson
Caulker
Diplomat
Editor
Film Editor
Journalist
Orator
Politician
Suffragist
Writer
Talbot County
Maryland
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Frederick Augustus Washington Baly
Fred Bailey
Freddie Bailey
Fear
Rage
Incurring
Others
Acceptance
Abhorrence
True
False
Hazard
Integrity
Hazards
Even
Atheism
Ridicule
Respect
Awakening
Moral
Journalism
Falseness
Rather
Prefer
Incur

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or overseers.
Frederick Douglass
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Money is the measure of morality, and the success or failure of slavery as a money-making system, determines with many whether...it should be maintained or abolished.
Frederick Douglass
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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. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to SPEAK.
Frederick Douglass
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From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen.
Frederick Douglass
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We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.
Frederick Douglass
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To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.
Frederick Douglass
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I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.
Frederick Douglass
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He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
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Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere
Frederick Douglass
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Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.
Frederick Douglass
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Civil war was not a mere strife for territory and dominion, but a contest of civilization against barbarism.
Frederick Douglass
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Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass
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I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.
Frederick Douglass
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Without Struggle There Is No Success
Frederick Douglass
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It is the mission of the printer to diffuse light and knowledge by a judicious intermingling of black with white.
Frederick Douglass
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A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
Frederick Douglass
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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
Frederick Douglass
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Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
Frederick Douglass
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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.
Frederick Douglass
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A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
Frederick Douglass