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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
Forever
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More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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The opposite of compromise is character.
Frederick Douglass
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Let us render the tyrant no aid.
Frederick Douglass
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What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. ... All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... Your interference is doing him positive injury.
Frederick Douglass
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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
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These were choice documents to me... They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance.
Frederick Douglass
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The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
Frederick Douglass
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The ballot is the only safety.
Frederick Douglass
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He who would be free must strike the first blow.
Frederick Douglass
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Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. . . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . .
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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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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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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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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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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We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
Frederick Douglass
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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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Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.
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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Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
Frederick Douglass
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I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
Frederick Douglass