A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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

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

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

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

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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

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 Quote

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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 Quote

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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 Quote

One and God make a majority.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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

Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will. Show me the exact amount of wrong and injustices that are visited upon a person and I will show you the exact amount of words endured by these people.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or overseers.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
- Frederick Douglass Quote

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.
- Frederick Douglass Quote