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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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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
Past
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Present
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Future
Free
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Speak
Creature
More quotes by Frederick Douglass
[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
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
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass
Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places.
Frederick Douglass
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
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Frederick Douglass
[...] 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
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
Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog. Feed and clothe him well, work him moderately, surround him with physical comfort and dreams of freedom intrude.
Frederick Douglass
Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere
Frederick Douglass
In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.
Frederick Douglass
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
The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected.
Frederick Douglass
The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people.
Frederick Douglass
It is the mission of the printer to diffuse light and knowledge by a judicious intermingling of black with white.
Frederick Douglass
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
Frederick Douglass
My hopes were never brighter than now.
Frederick Douglass
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
The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government.
Frederick Douglass
Fortune may crowd a man's life with fortunate circumstances and happy opportunities, but they will, as we all know, avail him nothing unless he makes a wise and vigorous use of them.
Frederick Douglass
