A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.

— Frederick Douglass

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

— Frederick Douglass

A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnanimity.

— Frederick Douglass

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

— Frederick Douglass

A smile or a tear has no nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man

— Frederick Douglass

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.

— Frederick Douglass

At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon the slave and slaveholder.

— Frederick Douglass

[A] woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.

— Frederick Douglass

E have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand.

— Frederick Douglass

Everybody has asked the question. . ." What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! You're doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples does not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!

— Frederick Douglass