Frederick Douglass Quotes

The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the Government of Reasons; to place our Subject in a Right Light, and excite our Hearers to a due consideration of it.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

I refuse to bring my son up in a world corrupt as it is now.

I try to be outraged by things that other people are just very accepting of, as though they're normal and can't be changed. A lot of what I write about is, 'Hey, you know, this stuff is really awful, and it doesn't need to be, and that's why it's so offensive.' Things should be better.

If they're all so brilliant and I'm such an affirmative-action hire, how come they didn't catch me?

The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.

Ridicule is more powerful than any argument.

Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

Inequality is not the same thing as unfairness; and, to my mind, it is the latter that has incited so much political turmoil in the rich world today.

The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.

Trump is part of the reason you are suffering. Trump is the one playing on the not-so-level playing field where he wins and you lose.

I consider myself to be quite persuasive when I want.

The point that I would make is it's easy for somebody like me to be critical of Colin Kaepernick, but I haven't suffered some of the same issues that Colin Kaepernick has. On some level, it's like, how dare I weigh in on what Kaepernick is doing or feeling?

I run into a lot of ignorance and stupidity. It gets really frustrating, but you have to take yourself out of it and realize what's happening in the bigger picture.

We communicate with passion and passion persuades.

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.

Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.

Jokes are unanswerable objections.

The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.

As if reasoning were any kind of writing or talking which tends to convince people that some doctrine or measure is true and right.

I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning, but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.

DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.