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You have to take power. No one gives it.

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
Take
Giving
Gives
Power

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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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
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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
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Oppression makes a wise man mad.
Frederick Douglass
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Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever... I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
Frederick Douglass
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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
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Once you read, you will be free forever.
Frederick Douglass
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The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
Frederick Douglass
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Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God's truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.
Frederick Douglass
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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.
Frederick Douglass
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American labor rights activist, on activities of the National Farm Workers Association Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may.
Frederick Douglass
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The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America.
Frederick Douglass
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I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Frederick Douglass
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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
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He who would be free must strike the first blow.
Frederick Douglass
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Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
Frederick Douglass
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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.
Frederick Douglass
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Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box.
Frederick Douglass
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The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government.
Frederick Douglass
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Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
Frederick Douglass
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I glory in the conflict, that I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain.
Frederick Douglass