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

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I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
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...I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
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The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
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If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.
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We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
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Without Struggle There Is No Success
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We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.
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The ballot is the only safety.
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Everybody has asked the question . . . 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!
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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.
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To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
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As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate.
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I glory in the conflict, that I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain.
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A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
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Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity.
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Let us render the tyrant no aid let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.
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He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest.
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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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It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.
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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.
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