Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was an American orator and abolitionist who was born into slavery in Maryland, wrought as a slave in a Baltimore shipbuilder's yard. He escaped at the age of 21 to New York, changed his name and moved to Massachusetts, where he became an agent for Anti-Slavery Society. He attended an anti-slavery meeting, where he spoke so eloquently that he was appointed by the Anti-Slavery Society to lecture in its behalf.He did it with great success became known for his stirring and eloquent speeches. He got much appreciation for his speeches both in England and America. Later, he became a journalist and then US diplomat.
He published an Autobiography, which gives a thrilling account of his life.
Wisdom & Quotes
- The destiny of the coloured American ... is the destiny of America.
- If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.
- It's a poor rule that won't work both ways.
- If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet deprecate 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. ...Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get.
- He who would be free must strike the first blow.
- Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may.
- Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.
- If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labour, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if need be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
- I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity.
- I have no protection at home, or resting place abroad. ... I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw in the land of my birth. I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were.
- Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
- I hear the mournful wail of millions!
- Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
- 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.
- The sunlight that has brought life and healing to you has brought (slave) stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
- The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
- They who study mankind with a whip in their hands will always go wrong.
- I glory in conflict that I may hereafter exult in victory.
Henry David Thoreau