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If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

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
Diversity
Cause
Causes
Justice
Culture
Men
Advocated
Negro

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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... and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty.
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Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.
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The man who will get up will be helped up and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.
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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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Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
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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I escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist and speaker.
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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Our destiny is largely in our hands.
Frederick Douglass
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We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.
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Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will. Show me the exact amount of wrong and injustices that are visited upon a person and I will show you the exact amount of words endured by these people.
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Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere
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Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
Frederick Douglass
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If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
Frederick Douglass
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In life you don't get everything you pay for, but you must pay for everything you get.
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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.
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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Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.
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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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