How Did Frederick Douglass Define True Success in Life?

Success is not measured in the currency of comfort, though comfort itself is no sin. Nor is it found in the accolades of men, however sweet such praise may be to the ear. I have stood before crowds of thousands, I have dined with presidents, I have seen my name in journals and books — yet none of these constitute the measure of a life well-lived.

True success is the expansion of human liberty and the elevation of human dignity. It is the moment when a man who was deemed chattel recognizes himself as a man — bearing reason, conscience, and the capacity for self-determination. That moment, when the iron chains fall away, is success beyond all earthly measure.

But success is not a destination reached and then abandoned. It is a perpetual struggle. I have often said that power concedes nothing without a demand. Success demands that you do not rest upon yesterday's victories. The work of freedom is never finished. When slavery was abolished — a triumph, yes, but only a beginning — I did not lay down my pen. I took up the causes of women's suffrage, of equal rights, of justice for all races.

Success, therefore, is measured by the distance traveled toward justice, by the number of chains broken, by the expansion of the circle of human brotherhood. It is found in the mind awakened from ignorance, in the voice no longer silenced by oppression, in the doors opened that were once locked.

I measure my success not by what I have gained for myself, but by what has been gained for my people and for humanity at large. If my suffering and my struggle have served to light the way for others toward freedom, if my words have kindled the fire of resistance in hearts grown weary, if my life has contributed — however modestly — to the great cause of human emancipation, then I am successful. Everything else is merely circumstance.