Thomas Frederick Douglass Quotes & Sayings

It requires two indiscreet persons to institute a quarrel; one individual cannot quarrel alone. — Aime Martin

I tell you," he [Milosevic] continued, "Izetbegovic has earned Sarajevo by not abandoning it. He's one tough guy. It's his". These words were probably the most astonishing and unexpected of the conference. — Richard Holbrooke

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

Lost is just another word for exploring. — Sandy Gingras

I always think about what it means to wear eyeglasses. When you get used to glasses you don't know how far you could really see. I think about all the people before eyeglasses were invented. It must have been weird because everyone was seeing in different ways according to how bad their eyes were. Now, eyeglasses standardize everyone's vision to 20-20. That's an example of everyone becoming more alike. Everyone could be seeing at different levels if it weren't for glasses. — Andy Warhol

I would walk into the Carnegie Library and I would see the pictures of Booker T. and pictures of Frederick Douglass and I would read. I would go into the Savannah Public Libraries in the stacks and see all of the newspapers from all over the country. Did I dream that I would be on the Supreme Court? No. But I dreamt that there was a world out there that was worth pursuing. — Clarence Thomas

It's up to you. Everyone should get to choose their own way, and that's all I mean by yelling. But I shall choose to remember you, and it would be nice if it went both ways. That's how it generally goes in my country. But does it? September thought. If a body is hurt, they try to forget the person who hurt them and never think about the pain again. Remembering aches, like when I remember my father. It'd be so much easier to never wonder about him. I'm sure he remembers my face, but it's hard to remember his, when he's been gone so long! Perhaps memory is a thing that everyone involved has to work at, like stitching up a big quilt out of everything that ever happened to you. — Catherynne M Valente

New Dealers always seemed to be comparing actual capitalism with ideal government. They judged capitalism by its apparent effects and government by its announced intentions — Jim Powell

Whoever gains the palm by merit, let him hold it. — Horatio Nelson

Nature in causing reason and the passions to be born at one and the same time apparently wished by the latter gift to distract man from the evil she had done him by the former, and by only permitting him to live for a few years after the loss of his passions seems to show her pity by early deliverance from a life that reduces him to reason as his sole resource. — Nicolas Chamfort

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and 'exculpate' meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation. — Thomas Sowell

It takes a week to do a sitcom in Hollywood. I do a show a day in my studio, three or four shows a week. — Tyler Perry

When inequality gets to an extreme, it is completely useless for growth. — Thomas Piketty

[Cus D'Amato] told me, 'You're the type of guy who has to be hurt to learn.' I'm pissed off today because he was right about everything — Mike Tyson

The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures. — Humphry Davy

And anyway, how do you talk about losing everything? — Christina Baker Kline

If they shoot at you, shoot back. If it's one of my people, don't worry about blasting one by accident. Jayne would kill them anyway for endangering you. — Sherrilyn Kenyon