You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed. Frederick Douglass More Quotes by Frederick Douglass More Quotes From Frederick Douglass Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable. Frederick Douglass self-made important opportunity Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. Frederick Douglass greatness religious prayer Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. . . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . . Frederick Douglass future resistance hope The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. Frederick Douglass get-up he-man men The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance. Frederick Douglass resistance acceptance truth The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. Frederick Douglass rebellion uprising causes Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a great man - too great to be small in anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color. Frederick Douglass color humble men There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers , but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels. Frederick Douglass army real war The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery. Frederick Douglass misery-and-pain white-man men What is possible for me is possible for you. Frederick Douglass black-history liberty The opposite of compromise is character. Frederick Douglass compromise opposites character The church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors.... For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by these Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done! Frederick Douglass names writing country If we would reach a degree of civilization higher and grander than any yet attained, we should welcome to our ample continent all the nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples, and as fast as they learn our language and comprehend the duties of citizenship, we should incorporate them into the American body politic. The outspread wings of the American eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come. Frederick Douglass eagles wings civilization We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future. Frederick Douglass heartbroken letting-go meaningful Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother. Frederick Douglass tyrants light brother To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. Frederick Douglass slave moral vision I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted. Frederick Douglass slavery found wanted Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places. Frederick Douglass truth-is truth beautiful I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglass political My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success... All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonour, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor. Frederick Douglass intellectual self men
