Frederick Douglass Quotes: Unforgettable Insights on Freedom, Education, and Equality

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

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.

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

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

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

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.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

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

I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.

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.

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

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh, had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes??a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter, under which the darkest, foulest, grossest and most infernal abominations fomented earthly powers can find the strongest protection.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

They won’t plant seeds of change, unless we first cultivate the ground.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike language.

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

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning.

It’s not light that we need, but fire; it’s not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

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

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.

Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe.

To be once in doubt is to be resolved.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

The thing worse than a rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

The past is a part of my heritage, but it is not my prison.

It’s not simply knowing right from wrong, but doing right that makes the difference.

I love the religion of Christianity, which cometh from above.

I know nothing about music. In my line, we don’t get any.

Revolutions do not go backward.

The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.

I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.

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.

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes.

The existence of Lincoln — the embodiment of the anti-slavery movement — is a living refutation of the gentleman’s argument. He is black, and he is good — just like us — despite the fact that we are white.

The difference between success and failure in any new undertaking is that of turning one’s attention from the sad side to the bright side of things.

The battle with slavery is no less fierce and deadly today than at the time of emancipation.

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.

The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling. Tell me why!

I have observed this in my experience of slavery, —that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.