Frederick Douglass

The very existence of slavery is a standing lie.

The highest good is to be found in the pursuit of truth and justice.

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.

A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot-box, jury-box, and the cartridge-box.

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

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

A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.

The American people have this to learn: that 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 is safe.

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.

The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed.

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

Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.

The true remedy for the Fugitive Slave Bill is a good revolver, a steady hand, and a determination to shoot down any man attempting to kidnap.

Let us have no country but a free country, liberty for all and chains for none.

The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve.

I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.

The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.

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

The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.