Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglasswas an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement from Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writings. In his time he was described by abolitionists as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a...
ProfessionAutobiographer
Date of Birth14 February 1818
CityTalbot County, MD
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
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.
You degrade us and then ask why we are degraded. You shut our mouths and ask why we don't speak. You close your colleges and seminaries against us and then ask why we don't know.
What to the Slave is the 4th of July.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.
I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value.
If the Negro knows enough to pay taxes to support the government, he knows enough to vote; taxation and representation should go together. If he knows enough to shoulder a musket and fight for the flag, fight for the government, he knows enough to vote.
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
[...] 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.