It is not light that we need, but fire it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. – Frederick Douglass
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. – Frederick Douglass
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. – Frederick Douglass
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. – Frederick Douglass
Ah, if he could have plunged up into the clouds, so as to sweep thereon through the undulating heavens over the boundless earth!—ah, if he could have floated with the flower-fragrance over the flowers,—could have streamed with the wind over the summits, through the woods! – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography,