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Quotes about freedom

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You cannot write the bloody laws of slavery on those restless billows. The ocean, if not the land, is free.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895The Heroic Slave (1853), Madison Washington
- Slavery
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? (1852)
The negro worked and took his pay in religion and the lash.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Our Composite Nationality (1869)
- Religion
- Slavery
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895West India Emancipation (If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress) (1857)
- Change
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895West India Emancipation (If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress) (1857)
- Power
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895West India Emancipation (If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress) (1857)
- Justice
- Power
Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895West India Emancipation (If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress) (1857)
- Wisdom
I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Chapter IIIn context
- Music
- Slavery
The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Chapter VIIIn context
- Slavery
I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Chapter XIn context
- Slavery
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Chapter XIn context
- Slavery
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
W. E. B. Du Bois1868–1963John Brown: A Biography (1909): “The Legacy of John Brown”
- Liberty
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,⁠—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings⁠—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Paul Laurence Dunbar1872–1906Sympathy (1899)In context
- Prayer
Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.
Will Durant1885–1981Declaration of INTERdependence (1945)
- Liberty
Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?
Roger Ebert1942–2013Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion (1990 Edition), p. 735