Frederick Douglass Quotes About Justice

Quotes about: Justice

• 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.

  Frederick Douglass

  Peace, Patriotic, Ignorance

  Speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1886

• You degrade us and then ask why we are degraded. You shut our mouths and ask why we don't speak. You close your colleges and seminaries against us and then ask why we don't know.

  Frederick Douglass

  College, Justice, Diversity

  Frederick Douglass, Philip Sheldon Foner, Yuval Taylor (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.4, Chicago Review Press

• Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. Hey never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace.

  Frederick Douglass

  Wisdom, Struggle, Fighting

• You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.

  Frederick Douglass

  Justice, Diversity, Depth

• The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?

  Frederick Douglass

  Love, America, Law

• The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Justice, Peaceful

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Fire, Light

  Speech, Rochester, N.Y., 5 July 1852

• I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine.

  Frederick Douglass

  Father, Distance, Healing

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

• Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.

  Frederick Douglass

  Ignorance, Justice, Black History

  Speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1886

• One by one I have seen obstacles removed, errors corrected, prejudices softened, proscriptions relinquished, and my people advancing in all the elements that go to make up the sum of the general welfare. And I remember that God reigns in eternity, and that whatever delays, whatever disappointments and discouragements may come, truth, justice, liberty and humanity will ultimately prevail.

  Frederick Douglass

  Disappointment, Errors, People

• 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

  Country, Writing, Names

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

• In the struggle for justice, the only reward is the opportunity to be in the struggle. You can't expect that you're going to have it tomorrow. You just have to keep working on it.

  Frederick Douglass

  Struggle, Opportunity, Justice

• We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Rights, Justice

  Frederick Douglass, Philip Sheldon Foner, Yuval Taylor (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.102, Chicago Review Press

• They who study mankind with a whip in their hands will always go wrong.

  Frederick Douglass

  Hands, Justice, Diversity

  Frederick Douglass, Philip Sheldon Foner, Yuval Taylor (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.402, Chicago Review Press

• In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy,
  but simply justice.

  Frederick Douglass

  People, Justice, Pity

  Frederick Douglass (2013). “Selected Addresses of Frederick Douglass”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

• The sunlight that has brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.

  Frederick Douglass

  Healing, July, Justice

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

• If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Justice, Diversity

• What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustices and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

  Frederick Douglass

  July, Years, Justice

  Speech, Rochester, N.Y., 5 July 1852

• What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.

  Frederick Douglass

  Justice, Pity, Benevolence

  Frederick Douglass (2016). “The Essential Douglass: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

• What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. ... All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... Your interference is doing him positive injury.

  Frederick Douglass

  Giving, Justice, Legs

  Frederick Douglass (2016). “The Essential Douglass: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin