Frederick Douglass

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

“The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.”

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

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

“Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the...”

“The soul that is within me no man can degrade.”

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

“That which is inhuman cannot be divine.”

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

“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.”

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

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

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

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

“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.”

“One and God make a majority.”

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

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

“What to the Slave is the 4th of July.”

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