Quote

[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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
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
War
Cause
John
Taper

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

Image
I love the religion of Christianity - which cometh from above - which is a pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of good fruits, and without hypocrisy.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Allow us the dignity to fight for our own freedom
Frederick Douglass
Image
I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Experience proves that those are oftenest abused who can be abused with the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
Image
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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
Image
We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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
Image
Everybody has asked the question . . . 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!
Frederick Douglass
Image
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.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or overseers.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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
Image
Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place.
Frederick Douglass
Image
I recognize the Republican Party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
Frederick Douglass
Image
For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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
Image
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Frederick Douglass
Image
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
Frederick Douglass
Image
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