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[John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.

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
War
Cause
John
Taper
Speak
Events
Logic
Inexorable
Ends
Fight
Slavery
Zeal
Light
Land
Refuse
Infinitely
Government
Causes
Slave
Superior
May
Dies
Mines
Superiors
People
Freedom
Mine
Brown
Force
Sun
Burning

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He who would be free must strike the first blow.
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Allow us the dignity to fight for our own freedom
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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.
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The ballot is the only safety.
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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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I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.
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Without Struggle There Is No Success
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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
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Let us render the tyrant no aid let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.
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Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
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... and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty.
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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.
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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
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The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
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Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.
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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.
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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.
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I had as well be killed running as die standing
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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.
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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
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