Quote

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

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
Life
Wise
Vigorous
Happy
Crowd
Opportunity
Crowds
Use
Fortunate
Makes
Opportunities
May
Fortune
Nothing
Circumstances
Men
Unless
Avail

More quotes by Frederick Douglass

Image
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Oppression makes a wise man mad.
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
[...] 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
Image
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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
Image
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.
Frederick Douglass
Image
We succeed, not alone by the laborious exertions of our faculties, be they small or great, but by the regular, thoughtful and systematic exercise of them.
Frederick Douglass
Image
The man who will get up will be helped up and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
Frederick Douglass
Image
He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
Frederick Douglass
Image
Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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
Image
What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
Frederick Douglass
Image
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Frederick Douglass
Image
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.
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
Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
Frederick Douglass
Image
I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.
Frederick Douglass