If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
West India Emancipation speech (1857)
FD
Frederick Douglass quotes
1818-1895 ยท Presidents and world leaders
Escaped slave who became a leading abolitionist, orator and writer.
7 quotes, 7 traced to where Douglass said or wrote them.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
West India Emancipation speech (1857)
I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.
Lecture, The Anti-Slavery Movement (1855)
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Speech on the anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia (1885)
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.
Speech at the Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C. (1883)
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
A Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1860)