Frederick Douglass Quotes

"A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people."
-Frederick Douglass in Learning quotes.

"The soul that is within me no man can degrade."
-Frederick Douglass

"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 in Needs quotes.

"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion."
-Frederick Douglass

"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

"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

"I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. 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 upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!"
-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 in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
-Frederick Douglass in Poverty quotes.

"Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out."
-Frederick Douglass

"At a time like this, scorching iron, not convincing argument, is needed."
-Frederick Douglass

"Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. . . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . . . Only as we rise . . . do we encounter opposition."
-Frederick Douglass

"I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one."
-Frederick Douglass

"A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him."
-Frederick Douglass in Character quotes.

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
-Frederick Douglass

"America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future."
-Frederick Douglass

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