Frederick Douglass
“Slavery is not abolished until the Black man has the ballot.”
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.”
“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.”
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others.”
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
“I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”