Fredericks Douglass Quotes

And stature commanding and exact - in intellect richly endowed - in natural eloquence a prodigy - in soul manifestly "created but a little lower than the angels" - yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave, - trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe ~ 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

I learned to fly an airplane, and had my own airplane during the 1960s. ~ Douglass North

Who better to confess to than a dying woman? ~ Sara Douglass

It was necessary to keep our religious masters at St. Michael's unacquainted with the fact, that, instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky, we were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings. ~ Frederick Douglass

Douglas claimed that in his New Salem days Lincoln "could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together" - a charge that was not merely inaccurate but singularly inappropriate from a senator known to have a fondness for drink - and Lincoln jeered that Douglas's popular-sovereignty doctrine was "as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death. ~ David Herbert Donald

I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. ~ Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglas's agenda was an agenda, not for black people to get out of slavery. It was for America to become a better democracy. And it's spilt over for women's rights; it's split over for worker's rights and so forth. ~ Cornel West

When it came time to go to college, I had been accepted for Harvard when my father was offered the position of head of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company office on the west coast, and we moved to San Francisco. ~ Douglass North

it was worth half-cent to kill a "nigger", and a half-cent to bury one. ~ Frederick Douglass

The development of a political-economic framework to explore long-run institutional change occupied me during all of the 1980s and led to the publication of Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance in 1990. ~ Douglass North

Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning. ~ Frederick Douglass

What is possible for me is possible for you. ~ Frederick Douglass

I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. ~ 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

There is a winter ahead such as I think we cannot imagine, but remember that spring always follows. ~ Sara Douglass

Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. ~ Steven Weinberg

The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart ~ Frederick Douglass

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. ~ Frederick Douglass

Autobiography is awfully seductive; it's wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass - the slave narrative - speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying 'I,' meaning 'we.' ~ Maya Angelou

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

The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history - the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you
to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The
principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. ~ Frederick Douglass

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

The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people. ~ Frederick Douglass

Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere ~ Frederick Douglass

March brought the news of Frederick's marriage. He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words which proved how far the idioms of his bride's country were infecting him. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Freedom is never given to anybody, for the oppressor has you in domination because he plans to keep you there." And he went beyond Douglass to espouse a doctrine of passive, non-violent resistance. "Hate begets hate, violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness," King said. "Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. ... This is a nonviolent protest. We are depending on moral and spiritual forces. ~ Robert A. Caro

A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing. ~ Frederick Douglass

On the whole, the evidence indicates that model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent with observations ... ~ David Douglass

When I went into their family, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The mistress of the house was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling - that woman is a Christian. ~ Frederick Douglass

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the 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. ~ Frederick Douglass

It is disappointing and embarrassing to the science profession that some Nobel Laureates would deliberately use their well deserved scientific reputations and hold themselves out as experts in other fields. ~ David Douglass

I had thought that my being would collapse when I gifted my soul', said Neville. 'Why is it then that I still breathe, and feel, and move?' 'Because,' said Mary, 'when you gift something wholly and completely and unhesitatingly it returns to you doublefold. ~ Sara Douglass

When we decide to see things one way we are often incapable of seeing them any other way. ~ Sara Douglass

Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity. ~ Frederick Douglass

what still more shocking outrages were perpetrated upon his mind! with all his noble powers and sublime aspirations, how like a brute was he treated, even by those professing to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus! to what dreadful liabilities was he continually subjected! ~ Frederick Douglass

Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will. Show me the exact amount of wrong and injustices that are visited upon a person and I will show you the exact amount of words endured by these people. ~ Frederick Douglass

Despite of it all, the Negro remains ... cool, strong, imperturbable, and cheerful. ~ 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

The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. ~ Frederick Douglass

As Frederick Douglass said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. ~ Joshua Wolf Shenk

A man must be disposed to judge of emancipation by other tests than whether it has increased the produce of sugar, - and to hate slavery for other reasons than because it starves men and whips women, - before he is ready to lay the first stone of his anti-slavery life. ~ Frederick Douglass

They are thought pictures -- the outstanding headlands of the meandering shores of life, and are points to steer by on the broad sea of thought and experience. They body forth in living forms and colors the ever varying lights and shadows of the soul. ~ Frederick Douglass