DOUGLASS, Frederick

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Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

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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.

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To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

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Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

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A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

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I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far, the larger part of the slaves knows as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of the master’s within my knowledge, to keep their slaves this ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.

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The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; for I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.

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