"All great qualities are never found in any one man or in any one race. The whole of humanity, like the whole of everything else, is ever greater than a part. Men only know themselves by knowing others, and contact is essential to this knowledge. In one race we perceive the predominance of imagination; in another, like the Chinese, we remark its almost total absence. In one people we have the reasoning faculty; in another the genius for music; in another exists courage, in another great physical vigor, and so on through the whole list of human qualities. All are needed to temper, modify, round and complete the whole man and the whole nation. Not the least among the arguments whose consideration should dispose us to welcome among us the peoples of all countries, nationalities and colors, is the fact that all races and varieties of men are improvable. This is the grand distinguishing attribute of humanity, and separates man from all other animals. If it could be shown that any particular race of men are literally incapable of improvement, we might hesitate to welcome them here. But no such men are any where to be found, and if they were, it is not likely that they would ever trouble us with their presence. The fact that the Chinese and other nations desire to come and do come is a proof of their capacity for improvement and of their fitness to come."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Frederick Douglass, Our Composite Nationality (7 December 1869), Boston, Massachusetts.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/United_States
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
United States
802 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by United States →
Related Quotes
"U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated Korean-American Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College, as the ne…"
"The law of nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any…"
"Protect every citizen, including the millions of people of foreign birth who will flock to our shores to become citiz…"
"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of…"
"Sixty years ago, at dawn on June 25, the Korean War broke out when Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of Kore…"
"That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from al…"
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and d…"
"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."
"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in…"
"It is a truism that America has become a more diverse country. It is also a beautiful thing to watch. Visitors from o…"