Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, statesman, writer, abolitionist and an orator who became a leader of the abolitionist movement. He was known for his dazzling oratory and incisive anti-slavery writings and thoughts. He also wrote various autobiographies. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”, one of his autobiographies became the best seller. All his writings and works reflect his powerful thoughts on issues that were dear to him. Over the years, his thoughts have become famous quotations and are quotes extensively. He was actively involved in efforts that espoused issues like women's rights, peace, land reform and education. Frederick Douglass educated slaves and motivated them to know their rights. Douglass published his first abolitionist newspaper, 'The North Star' when he returned from the US. In 1848, Douglass was the only African-American to attend Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, showing his support for women’s rights. Douglass had escaped slavery and fought for those who were still captive. His thoughts and quotations are still relevant and inspire many.
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.
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
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.
Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, '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.
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.
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.
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
The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.
Frederick Douglass
Our destiny is largely in our hands.
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.
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
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum.
Frederick Douglass
It was worth half-cent to kill a "nigger", and a half-cent to bury one.
Frederick Douglass
The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.
Frederick Douglass
A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
The thought of only being a creature of the present and past was troubling. I longed for a future too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
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.
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 htthe brother, sister, throng,
With words of heavenly union.
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.
