Frederick Douglass Quotes

If you’re looking for words that can stir your soul and set your heart ablaze, here are the Frederick Douglass Quotes.

Introduction

Frederick Douglass was an American abolitionist, social reformer, and writer, born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, USA, in 1818. He became one of the most influential figures in the abolitionist movement, advocating for the end of slavery and the civil rights of African Americans.

Douglass learned to read and write while still enslaved, and he used his literacy skills to educate himself and others about the evils of slavery. He escaped from slavery in 1838 and became a vocal advocate for the abolition of slavery, speaking at numerous rallies and meetings throughout the United States and Great Britain.

In addition to his work as an abolitionist, Douglass was also a prolific writer, publishing several autobiographical works, including “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” and “My Bondage and My Freedom.” He was also a powerful orator, known for his passionate speeches that inspired and motivated audiences.

Douglass lived to see the end of slavery in the United States, and he continued to fight for the civil rights of African Americans until his death on February 20, 1895, in Washington D.C. His legacy as a prominent abolitionist and civil rights leader continues to inspire and influence people around the world. Best 50+ Frederick Douglass Quotes we have collected in this blog.

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 Quotes

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

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 Quotes

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 Quotes

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I am a man; I am not a chattel; I am not a thing to be owned.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Some know the value of education by having it. I knew its value by not having it.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

A smile or a tear has no nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

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 Quotes

For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

We were both victims to the same overshadowing evil—she, as mistress, I, as slave.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

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 Quotes

Should a slave, when assaulted, but raise his hand in self-defense, the white assaulting party is fully justified by southern, or Maryland, public opinion, in shooting the slave down.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

For no man who lives at all lives unto himself. He either helps or hinders all who are in anywise connected to him.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

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

I have ever regarded it as the first plain manifestation of that kind providence which has ever since attended me, and marked my life with so many favors.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man’s slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

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.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnamity.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes

But I should be false in the earliest sentiments of my soul, if I suppressed the opinion. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.
– Frederick Douglass Quotes