The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future, too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.
- Topic: Action, Determination, Hope, Leadership, Speech, Time
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Frederick Douglass
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.
I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.
Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate 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.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
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Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
You have no idea what your legacy will be. Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched, every person whose life was either moved or not. It’s every person you’ve harmed or helped. That’s your legacy.
The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
An hour of planning can say you 10 hours of doing.
No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
Impossible is just an opinion.
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent or hinder or control. The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; All things give way before it, soon or late.
This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.
What though strength fails? Boldness is certain to win praise. In mighty enterprises, it is enough to have had the determination.
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible. Then they seem improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
While there's life, there's hope.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.
Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords; but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain.
Here the people could stand it no longer and complained of the long voyage; but the Admiral cheered them as best he could, holding out good hope of the advantages they would have.
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?
And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a life.
Either you will control your government, or government will control you.
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.
Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.
People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.
If one but tell a thing well, it moves on with undying voice, and over the fruitful earth and across the sea goes the bright gleam of noble deeds ever unquenchable.
Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.
The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.
What you are is what you have been. What you will be is what you do now.
You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.
The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.
Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.