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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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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
Means
Ever
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Respectfully
Mean
Respected
Never
Till
People
Ethics
Neither
Respect

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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I escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist and speaker.
Frederick Douglass
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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
Frederick Douglass
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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.
Frederick Douglass
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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.
Frederick Douglass
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Some know the value of education by having it. I know it's value by not having it.
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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Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
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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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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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.
Frederick Douglass
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Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
Frederick Douglass
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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.
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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My hopes were never brighter than now.
Frederick Douglass
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[...] allowing only ordinary ability and opportunity, we may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work into which the whole heart is put[...] There is no royal road to perfection.
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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This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms.
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
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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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I had as well be killed running as die standing
Frederick Douglass