Skip to content
Shawords

Quote#Freedom

When I was about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learning to…

Quote byFrederick Douglass · 1818–1895

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), pp. 102–103..

English (original)

When I was about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learning to read, every increase of knowledge, especially anything respecting the free states, was an additional weight to the almost intolerable burden of my thought, 'I am a slave for life'. To my bondage I could see no end. It was a terrible reality, and I shall never be able to tell how sadly that thought chafed my young spirit.

— Frederick Douglass

More from Frederick Douglass