Frederick Douglass – 18 Quotes

18 Quotes by Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

– Frederick Douglass

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

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

– Frederick Douglass

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

– Frederick Douglass

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

– Frederick Douglass

One and God make a majority.

– 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

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

– Frederick Douglass

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

– Frederick Douglass

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

– Frederick Douglass

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

– 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

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

– Frederick Douglass

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

– 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 an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

– Frederick Douglass

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

– Frederick Douglass

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

– Frederick Douglass

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

– Frederick Douglass