Collected Meditations
Showing 39 quotesI recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.— Frederick Douglass
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.— Frederick Douglass
topics:
Future
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.— Frederick Douglass
topics:
Learning
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.— Frederick Douglass
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.— 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
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.— Frederick Douglass
topics:
Freedom
Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.— Frederick Douglass
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.— Frederick Douglass
topics:
Future
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.— Frederick Douglass
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.— 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
There is not a man beneath the canopy of Heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.— Frederick Douglass