Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“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.”
- Date
- 1845
Meaning of “I prefer to be true to myself, even…”
Douglass places self-respect above social approval: he would rather risk ridicule for stating what he genuinely believed about his own life than suppress that conviction to satisfy outside judgment.
Where does it come from?
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter V, Project Gutenberg #23. Douglass is explaining his belief that Providence shaped his removal to Baltimore and immediately connects that belief with a continuing conviction that slavery would not hold him forever.
