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Mankind are not held together by lies. Trust is the foundation of society. Where there is no truth, there can be no trust, and where there is no trust, there can be no society. Where there is society, there is trust, and where there is trust, there is something upon which it is supported.

— Frederick Douglass

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More quotes by Frederick Douglass

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

Speech at the Civil Rights Mass Meeting (1883)

I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)

I look upon my departure from Colonel Lloyd's plantation as one of the most interesting events of my life.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)

Where there is seeming contentment with slavery, there is certain treachery to freedom.

The Heroic Slave (1853)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

One country, one constitution, one destiny.

Daniel Webster

Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Frederick Douglass (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.