Frederick Douglass Quotes

On why asking politely for change has not worked:

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

Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation speech

On avoiding the hard conversation needed for a promotion:

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation speech

On choosing allies by principle instead of loyalty:

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

Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

On when planning has to turn into action:

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom

Deciding whether to risk ridicule for staying true to yourself:

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom

Holding onto your dignity in a situation designed to strip it away:

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom

On sitting out a celebration that was not built for you:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July

On grieving in a room full of people celebrating:

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.

Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July

On realizing that oppressing someone else costs you too:

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 Church and Prejudice

Deciding to invest in education even when it won't pay off immediately:

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Holding onto a small hope during a period that offers little reason for one:

I did not entirely despond; I had a solitary ray of hope glimmering through the sable cloud.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Reclaiming a sense of self after circumstances tried to strip it from you:

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

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Making sense of a grief that feels distant because the relationship itself was never allowed to form:

I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Deciding whether to build a career without the advantages others started with:

Self-made men are men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings, to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education.

Frederick Douglass, Self-Made Men