Slavery and the Struggle Against It | 104 Frederick Douglass Quotes
Frederick Douglass (February 1818 – February 20, 1895) may very well be the most famous figure in American history for his incredible life and survival as a slave, his success in breaking free from his master, and his remarkable work as an abolitionist. In fact, his self-written memoir and abolition treatise, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, has been labeled the most famous of all narratives ever written by a former slave.
Douglass took unbelievable and unheard-of risk in secretly learning to read on his own, standing up to his master, and successfully breaking free from his chains of slavery in Maryland. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, he worked diligently and relentlessly to save enough money to purchase his own freedom and his right to live thereafter as a citizen and no longer as a slave. Frederick Douglass beat all the odds and became a FREE Black American citizen. However, he did not stop there; he pushed even further to become the national leader of the Massachusetts and New York abolitionist movements, and achieved countless other goals. Quite frankly, he never stopped pushing.
As a former slave, dedicated abolitionist, eloquent writer and orator, avid social reformer, and esteemed statesman, Frederick Douglass’ speeches and writings are certainly ones to study and even ones by which to live. He is a perfect symbol of hope, perseverance, and self-made success. His narrative is widely taught in school curricula all over the U.S., and even the world, because his words ring true and resonate through the generations, even to today’s youth.
Table of Contents
- Best Frederick Douglass Quotes
- Important Frederick Douglass Quotes About Slavery
- Inspirational Quotes by Frederick Douglass
- Powerful Frederick Douglass Quotes on Education
- Long Frederick Douglass Quotes
- Frederick Douglass Quotes On Images
Best Frederick Douglass Quotes
- I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglass
- The soul that is within me no man can degrade. Frederick Douglass
- It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglass
- Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren. Frederick Douglass
- Our destiny is largely in our hands. 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
- You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed. Frederick Douglass
- We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future. Frederick Douglass
- Give me the making of a nation’s ballads and I care not who has the making of its Laws. Frederick Douglass
- I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of 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
- The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe. Frederick Douglass
- How do you feel, said a friend to me, when you are hooted and jeered on the street on account of your color? I feel as if an ass had kicked, but had hit nobody, was my answer. Frederick Douglass
- Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. Frederick Douglass
- It was worth half-cent to kill a “nigger”, and a half-cent to bury one. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- The destiny of the colored American … is the destiny of America. Frederick Douglass
- Inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death. Frederick Douglass
- That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Frederick Douglass
- The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery. Frederick Douglass
- In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny. Frederick Douglass
- Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding. Frederick Douglass
- From apparently the basest metals we have the finest toned bells. Frederick Douglass
- Welcome, welcome joy, welcome sorrow, welcome pleasure, welcome pain. You are all the ingredients of life — and with you all, life is an inestimable blessing. Frederick Douglass
- No one idea has given rise to more oppression and persecution toward colored people of this country than that which makes Africa, not America, their home. Frederick Douglass
- For no man who lives at all lives unto himself. He either helps or hinders all who are in anywise connected to him. Frederick Douglass
- He who despairs of progress despises the hope of the world, and shuts himself out from the chief significance of assistance — and is dead while he lives. 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
- The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. Frederick Douglass
- 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
- I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted. Frederick Douglass
- A man’s troubles are always half disposed of when he finds endurance the only alternative. Frederick Douglass
- I had reached the point, at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a Freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form. Frederick Douglass
- America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Frederick Douglass
- Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude. Frederick Douglass
- In what new skin will the old snake come forth? Frederick Douglass
- A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well. Frederick Douglass
- My hopes were never brighter than now. Frederick Douglass
- There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. Frederick Douglass
- At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Frederick Douglass
- He was whipped oftener who was whipped easiest. 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… the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes…denounced. 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
- I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man’s political hopes and the ark of his safety. Frederick Douglass
- Dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Having no resources within himself, he was compelled to be the copyist of many, and being such, he was forever the victim of inconsistency. Frederick Douglass
- The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve. Frederick Douglass
- What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world’s ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin? Frederick Douglass
- Alas! I had not then learned the measure of man’s inhumanity to man, nor to what limitless extent of wickedness he will go for the love of gain. Frederick Douglass
- The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Frederick Douglass
- For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will… Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Reader! Are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and purpose, or on the side of their down-trodden victims? If with the former, then you are the foe of God and man. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Important Frederick Douglass Quotes About Slavery
- To enslave men, successfully and safely, it is necessary to have their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived. A certain degree of attainable good must be kept before them. Frederick Douglass
- 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. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. Frederick Douglass
- I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance and appear to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman. Frederick Douglass
- The morality of free society can have no application to slave society… Make a man a slave, and you rob him of moral responsibility. Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability. Frederick Douglass
- The story of our inferiority is an old dodge, as I have said; for wherever men oppress their fellows, wherever they enslave them, they will endeavor to find the needed apology for such enslavement and oppression in the character of the people oppressed and enslaved. Frederick Douglass
- Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog; but, feed and clothe him well, – work him moderately – surround him with physical comfort, – and dreams of freedom intrude. Give him a bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master. Frederick Douglass
- For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other. Frederick Douglass
- I have observed this in my experience of slavery, — that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- To make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Geological trees do not flourish among slaves. Frederick Douglass
- Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic. Frederick Douglass
- What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. Frederick Douglass
- Mr. Johnson had just been reading the “Lady of the Lake,” and at once suggested that my name be “Douglass.” From that time until now I have been called “Frederick Douglass; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute! Frederick Douglass
- Should a slave, when assaulted, but raise his hand in self-defense, the white assaulting party is fully justified by southern, or Maryland, public opinion, in shooting the slave down. Frederick Douglass
- Slavery blunts the edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad – the criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule, contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word to a mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as slavery continues to pollute our soil. Frederick Douglass
- The better you treat a slave, the more you destroy his value as a slave, and enhance the probability of his eluding the grasp of the slaveholder; the more kindly you treat him, the more wretched you make him, while you keep him in the condition of a slave. Frederick Douglass
- To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Your faculties remained yours, and mine became useful to their rightful owner. Frederick Douglass
- 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. Frederick Douglass
- They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man’s slave was deemed a disgrace indeed! Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life! Have not I as good a right to be free as you have? Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Inspirational Quotes by Frederick Douglass
- A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man. Frederick Douglass
- If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Men talk of the Negro problem. There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their Constitution. 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
- The American people have this to learn: that 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 person nor property is safe. Frederick Douglass
- A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. Frederick Douglass
- Αllowing 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[…]Frederick Douglass
- It is no disparagement to truth, that it can only prevail where reason prevails. War begins where reason ends. The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. Frederick Douglass
- There is no royal road to perfection … He who does not think himself worth saving from poverty and ignorance by his own efforts, will hardly be thought worth the efforts of anybody else. Frederick Douglass
- … Whatever delays, whatever disappointments and discouragements may come, truth, justice, liberty, and humanity will ultimately prevail. Frederick Douglass
- A new life springs up in the soul with the discovery of every new agency by which the soul is raised to a higher level of wisdom: goodness and joy. Frederick Douglass
- They’ll read and sing a sacred song,
And make a prayer both loud and long,
And teach the right and do the wrong,
Hailing the brother, sister throng,
With words of heavenly union. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Powerful Frederick Douglass Quotes on Education
- Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. Frederick Douglass
- Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free. Frederick Douglass
- Once you learn to read, you’ll be forever free. Frederick Douglass
- Some know the value of education by having it. I know it’s value by not having it. Frederick Douglass
- Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. Frederick Douglass
- The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. Frederick Douglass
- Experience is a keen teacher. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Long Frederick Douglass Quotes
- Though the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adverse sentiment which fetters all his movements. In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress …. The color line meets him everywhere, and in a measure shuts him out from all respectable and profitable trades and callings. Frederick Douglass
- 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. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason. Frederick Douglass
- While there remains such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local affairs, —an idea, by the way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections of the country than perhaps any one other political idea, —no general assertion of human rights can be of any practical value. To change the character of the government at this point is neither possible nor desirable. All that is necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself and render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature. Frederick Douglass
- Such are the limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few among men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have come up to our very gates, and are already within striking distance. The yawning seam and corroded bolt conceal their defects from the mariner until the storm calls all hands to the pumps. Frederick Douglass
- A woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence. Frederick Douglass
- Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,—feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- I believe in individuality, but individuals are to the mass, like waves to the ocean. The highest order of genius is as dependent as the lowest. It, like the loftiest waves of the sea, derives its power… from the grandeur and vastness of the ocean of which it forms a part. We differ as the waves, but are one as the sea. Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass Quotes On Images
You May Also Like:
Words of a King | Martin Luther King Jr. Day Quotes
92 Quotes About Justice (That Will Make You Question What Is Fair)
The Absurd Case of Color Discrimination | 104 Racism Quotes