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Every one of us should be ashamed to be free while his brother is a slave.

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
Brother
Free
Every
Ashamed
Slave

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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.
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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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A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
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Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.
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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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The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected.
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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.
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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.
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What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
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Without Struggle There Is No Success
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Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.
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Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
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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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In life you don't get everything you pay for, but you must pay for everything you get.
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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.
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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.
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I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
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You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
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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.
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