The general sentiment of mankind is, that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, nor put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up.
Frederick Douglass, “The Significance of Emancipation in the West Indies (1857)” (via philosophybits)