Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Frederick Douglass on Being True to Oneself

Today is the birthday of Frederick Douglass, the American Abolitionist (1817-1895) who said
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.

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