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
Frederick Douglass quotes about
The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America.
Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.
The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.
The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.
Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
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.
These were choice documents to me... They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance.
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.