"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."
— Frederick Douglass
I Prayed For Twenty Years But
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
About this quote
Quote Investigator traced this idea to a speech Douglass gave in 1859 at the annual meeting of the Friends of Human Progress in Waterloo, New York, and a version appeared again in his 1876 "Self-Made Men" address. Douglass used the anecdote to argue for "practical religion" — the idea that faith without action is insufficient, and that his own escape from slavery came not from prayer alone but from the physical act of running north. The exact wording has varied across retellings.
Source
Attributed, widely reported in Douglass collections
