Explore Quotes by Frederick Douglass

The Constitution of the United States knows no distinction between citizens on account of color. Neither does it know any difference between a citizen of a state and a citizen of the United States.

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress.

Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.

Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.

What to the Slave is the 4th of July.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.

A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.

A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.

A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

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.

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.