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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

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

- Frederick Douglass

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.

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

One and God make a majority.

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

What to the Slave is the 4th of July.

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- 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

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

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass

Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.

- Frederick Douglass

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

- Frederick Douglass