I have been thus careful, not because I think what I say will have much effect in shaping the opinions of the world, but because whatever of influence I may possess, whether little or much, I wish it to go in the right direction, and according to truth.
Douglass articulates his commitment to truth and moral direction in his public statements, prioritizing integrity over the perceived impact of his words.
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Notwithstanding the great and all-abounding darkness of our past, the clouds that still overhang us in the moral and social sky, the defects inherited from a bygone condition of servitude, it is the faith of my soul that this brighter and…
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
A race which cannot save its earnings, which spends all it makes and goes in debt when it is sick, can never rise in the scale of civilization, no matter under what laws it may chance to be.