Frederick Douglass

A man's rights are not to be determined by the color of his skin, or in any way by the accident of his birth.

The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us!

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to the objects of his creation.

The pathway to progress is not a smooth one.

I did not run away from the South, I ran away from slavery.

The true remedy for all the ills of life is freedom.

One with God is a majority.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.

The lesson of the hour is: Cease to persecute, cease to oppress, and cease to enslave, and the Negro will prove himself a man.

The reform of the world is not to be accomplished by the weak and timid.

The feeling of the nation, after all, is the main thing.

I have ever felt that the best way to make a man a slave is to make him believe that he is a slave.

Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.

The destiny of the colored American, however, is the destiny of America.

I have been a slave, and I know what it is to be a slave. I am a freeman, and I know what it is to be a freeman. I will be a freeman, and I will die a freeman.

I am myself; I may be a poor man, but I am a man, and I am a free man.

My hopes were never brighter than now. My faith in the ultimate triumph of justice and liberty was never stronger.

I am not a man of words, but a man of deeds.

I have no love for America, as such. I have no patriotism. I have no country.