“That which is inhuman cannot be divine.” — Frederick Douglass Quote

That which is inhuman cannot be divine.

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, - a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, - and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of the slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.

I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

Though we take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; you cannot bereave him of his covetousness.

It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us - dreamers and indolent... It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich - these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.