“They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me…”
Upon being forced to leave a train car due to his color, as quoted in Up from Slavery (1901), Ch. VI: "Black Race And Red Race, the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of strange questions", by Booker T. Washington
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Frederick Douglass274
American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895Related quotes
“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
Booker T. Washington book Up from Slavery
Variant: I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Source: 1900s, Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them. This statement was quoted in Charm and Courtesy in Conversation (1904) by Frances Bennett Callaway, p. 153 as "I permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him." It has also often been paraphrased in various other ways: I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.
Source: Up from Slavery
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India
Address given in Bombay (26 September 1896), Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 1, p. 410 (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes.
1890s
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.
“Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.”
George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin
Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist
On the beheading of Eugene Armstrong. Statement accompanying a video of the beheading of US hostage Eugene Armstrong https://www.irishtimes.com/news/abu-musab-al-zarqawi-in-quotes-1.786124 The Irish Times (September 2004)
“With moral degradation goes political degradation.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part First, III
Napoleon the Little (1852)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)