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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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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
History
Freedoms
May
Virtually
Nothing
Disguise
Perpetual
Slavery
Universal
Less
War

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.
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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.
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Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
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The opposite of compromise is character.
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I recognize the Republican Party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
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You have to take power. No one gives it.
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Our destiny is largely in our hands.
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Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will. Show me the exact amount of wrong and injustices that are visited upon a person and I will show you the exact amount of words endured by these people.
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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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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.
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A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
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I have no protection at home, or resting place abroad. ... I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw in the land of my birth. I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were.
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Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
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What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
Frederick Douglass
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He who would be free must strike the first blow.
Frederick Douglass
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It was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.
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Shields Green was not one to shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his speech was singularly broken but his courage and self-respect made him quite a dignified character.
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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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I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
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The ballot is the only safety.
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