Frederick Douglass Quotes
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The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe.
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Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed…we were at times stunned, grieved, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts believed while they ached and bled.
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If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
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Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.
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Each colored voter of the state should say in scripture phrase, 'may my hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth' if ever I raise my voice or give my vote to the nominee of the Democratic Party.
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Shoot down the Confederacy and uphold the flag; the American flag.
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America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
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A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.
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What to the Slave is the 4th of July.
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When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
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Slavery has left behind it a spirit that still delights in human blood. Outrage, murder, and assassination are the inheritance of the freed men and women of the South. Neither our government nor our civilization seems able to stop the flow of blood. As in the time of slavery, the Church is silent.
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People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
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The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
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Detraction paves the way for the very perfections which it doubts and denies.
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I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
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Despite of it all, the Negro remains … cool, strong, imperturbable, and cheerful.
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A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
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I believe in individuality, but individuals are, to the mass, like waves to the ocean. The highest order of genius is as dependent as is the lowest.
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Jefferson was not ashamed to call the black man his brother and to address him as a gentleman.
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Those unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits, reached, in their glorious career that last highest point of nobleness beyond which human power cannot go. They died for their country.
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Assuming then that immigration already has a foothold and will combine for many years to come, we have a new element in our national composition which is likely to exercise a large influence upon the thought and the action of the whole nation.
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The Constitution of the United States knows no distinction between citizens on account of color.
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It is quite impossible, at this early date, to say with any decided emphasis what the future of the colored people will be. Speculations of that kind, thus far, have only reflected the mental bias and education of the many who have essayed to solve the problem.
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There is no race problem before the country, but only a political one, the question whether a Republican has any right to exist south of Mason and Dixon's line.