Great man and a great character! He was giving away his food in exchange for lessons in reading and writing. Born in a slave cabin, near Easton, Maryland was separated from his mother when only a few weeks old he was raised by his grandparents. At about the age of six, he was left on the plantation. Douglass never recovered from the betrayal of the abandonment. When he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live as a houseboy.
He was secretly taught the alphabet because it was unlawful to teach slaves how to read. When he was twelve or thirteen he purchased a copy of The Columbian Orator, a popular schoolbook of the time, which helped him to understand the power of the spoken and the written word, as two of the most effective means to win permanent, positive changes.
At the age of twenty, Douglass succeeded in escaping from slavery. in October 1841, after attending an anti-slavery convention on Nantucket Island, Douglass became a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Internationally recognized abolitionist, an indefatigable worker for justice, and defender of women’s rights.
(1818 – 1895)
– Frederick Douglass Quotes –
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
~ Frederick Douglass
People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
~ Frederick Douglass
Take advantage of every opportunity.
~ Frederick Douglass
A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.
~ Frederick Douglass
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
~ Frederick Douglass
Man’s greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
~ Frederick Douglass
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
~ Frederick Douglass
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
~ Frederick Douglass
Use the power of spoken and written language to effect positive change for yourself and society.
~ Frederick Douglass
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
~ Frederick Douglass
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
~ Frederick Douglass
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
~ Frederick Douglass
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
~ Frederick Douglass
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
~ Frederick Douglass
Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
~ Frederick Douglass
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
~ Frederick Douglass
Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.
~ Frederick Douglass
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.
~ Frederick Douglass
The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.
~ Frederick Douglass
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
~ Frederick Douglass
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
~ Frederick Douglass
The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
~ Frederick Douglass
Believe in yourself.
~ Frederick Douglass
A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
~ Frederick Douglass
I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.
~ Frederick Douglass
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
~ Frederick Douglass
I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man’s political hopes and the ark of his safety.
~ Frederick Douglass
What to the Slave is the 4th of July.
~ Frederick Douglass
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
~ Frederick Douglass
A gentleman will not isult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
~ Frederick Douglass
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
~ Frederick Douglass
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
~ Frederick Douglass
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.
~ Frederick Douglass
One and God make a majority.
~ Frederick Douglass
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
~ Frederick Douglass
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
~ Frederick Douglass
I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
~ Frederick Douglass
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
~ Frederick Douglass
