"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
"You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed." ~ Frederick Douglass
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." ~ 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... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." ~ Frederick Douglass
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. 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." ~ Frederick Douglass
"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." ~ 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." ~ Frederick Douglass
"A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box." ~ 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
"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." ~ Frederick Douglass
"A slave is someone who sits down, and waits for someone to free them." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." ~ Frederick Douglass
"There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution" ~ Frederick Douglass
"I will unite with anyone to do good, but with no one to do harm." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Without a struggle, there can be no progress." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." ~ Frederick Douglass
"To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." ~ Frederick Douglass
"I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored mans cause than those of the Democratic party." ~ Frederick Douglass
"In a composite Nation like ours, made up of almost every variety of the human family, there should be, as before the Law, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no black, no white, but one country, one citizenship equal rights and a common destiny for all. A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown, without delay." ~ Frederick Douglass
"In life you don't get everything you pay for, but you must pay for everything you get." ~ Frederick Douglass
"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." ~ Frederick Douglass
"The life of the 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
"The soul that is within me no man can degrade." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places." ~ Frederick Douglass
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and 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. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." ~ 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! You're doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, ... let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also." ~ 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
"Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. Hey never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace." ~ Frederick Douglass
"No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant." ~ Frederick Douglass
"The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both." ~ Frederick Douglass
"I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hatethe corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels." ~ Frederick Douglass