"Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest."
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Quote collection
Frederick Douglass quotes (page 11 of 12)
232 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The ballot is the only safety."
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"It was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read."
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"I have no protection at home, or resting place abroad. ... I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw in the land of my birth. I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were."
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"The sunlight that has brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine."
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"Money is the measure of morality, and the success or failure of slavery as a money-making system, determines with many whether...it should be maintained or abolished."
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"Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning."
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"I had as well be killed running as die standing"
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"The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government."
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"Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog. Feed and clothe him well, work him moderately, surround him with physical comfort and dreams of freedom intrude."
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"Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum."
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"Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains."
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"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."
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"I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it."
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"He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest."
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"I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine."
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"From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen."
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"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn."
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"My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life), was slightly tinged with a feeling of sadness."
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"The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men."
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