Frederick Douglass

“When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world.”

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

“Let the nation try justice and the problem will be solved.”

“What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.”

“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.”

“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.”

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”

“To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”

“You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”

“Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.”

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

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