Frederick Douglass Quotes

Men aspiring to be free can hardly think of enslaving others.

I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.

The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.

Freedom has a thousand charms to show That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.

Because I was born a slave, I love liberty more than you.

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom on those who are not free.

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.

Who dares not speak his free thoughts is a slave.

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.

There is not a man among them who would not leave if they believed they could make their escape … Liberty is sweet.

We have no right to believe that freedom can be won without struggle.

All I've ever wanted to do was create freedom.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

If any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others

I know why the caged bird sings.

We are a free people; and now you have planted in our country the title deeds of our future slavery. You are neither god nor demon; who are you, then, to make slaves? Orou! You understand the language of these men, tell us all, as you have told me, what they have written on this sheet of metal: This country is ours. This country yours? And why? Because you have walked thereon? If a Tahitian landed one day on your shores, and scratched on one of your rocks or on the bark of your trees: This country belongs to the people of Tahiti - what would you think?

Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

There is no such thing as freedom on earth," he said. "Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. YOU think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbreakable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me - THAT'S a bondage.

I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing, that no man desires for himself.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.

People speaking into handheld devices while they walk down the street and saying to the device, "I'm walking down the street now." People are enslaved. I was just up in the country for a few days last week and it was great: no television, no telephone, no nothing. I walked through the woods, sat around, smoked. And it was lovely. I think the desire to be free has mutated, and we now live in an era when the slaves celebrate their slavery - this whole corporate concept of being part of a "team" at work.

The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery

As for those who think the Arab world promises freedom, the briefest study of its routine traditional treatment of blacks (slavery) and women (purdah) will provide relief from all illusion. If Malcolm X had been a black woman his last message to the world would have been entirely different. The brotherhood of Moslem men-all colors-may exist there, but part of the glue that holds them together is the thorough suppression of women.

What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?