Frederick Douglass
The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected.Collection: Law
I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment; it only increased my desire to be free, and set me thinking of plans to gain my freedom.Collection: Inspirational
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.Collection: Prayer
American labor rights activist, on activities of the National Farm Workers Association Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may.Collection: Men
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress.Collection: Philosophy
E have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: People
A man is worked on by what he works on.Collection: Men
If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.Collection: Struggle
Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhereCollection: Elsewhere
I hear the mournful wail of millions!Collection: Slavery
I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.Collection: Sad
We succeed, not alone by the laborious exertions of our faculties, be they small or great, but by the regular, thoughtful and systematic exercise of them.Collection: Exercise
Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place.Collection: Men
The destiny of the colored American ... is the destiny of America.Collection: Destiny
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.Collection: Freedom
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 shelter under…which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protectionCollection: Covering
I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value.Collection: Good Luck
You degrade us and then ask why we are degraded. You shut our mouths and ask why we don't speak. You close your colleges and seminaries against us and then ask why we don't know.Collection: College
It's a poor rule that won't work both ways.Collection: Equality
The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?Collection: Love
The more men you make free, the more freedom is strengthened, and the more men you give an interest in the welfare and safety of the State, the greater is the security of the State.Collection: Men
Viewing the man from the genuine abolitionist ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed cold, tardy, weak and unequal to the task. But, viewing him from the sentiments of his people, which as a statesman he was bound to respect, then his actions were swift, bold, radical and decisive. Taking the man in the whole, balancing the tremendous magnitude of the situation, and the necessary means to ends, Infinite Wisdom has rarely sent a man into the world more perfectly suited to his mission than Abraham Lincoln.Collection: War
...I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.Collection: Differences
I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.Collection: Freedom
Civil war was not a mere strife for territory and dominion, but a contest of civilization against barbarism.Collection: War
Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God's truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.Collection: Heart
Without Struggle There Is No SuccessCollection: Struggle
We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.Collection: Men
From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen.Collection: Citizens
This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.Collection: July
Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or overseers.Collection: Literature
The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men.Collection: Brother
I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate.Collection: Thinking
Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity.Collection: Foundation
My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life), was slightly tinged with a feeling of sadness.Collection: Abolition Of Slavery
In the struggle for justice, the only reward is the opportunity to be in the struggle. You can’t expect that you’re going to have it tomorrow. You just have to keep working on it.Collection: Justice
There are at present many Coloured men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and labourers, but real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets.Collection: Real