"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs"

Frederick Douglass's quote speaks to the power of action. He suggests that prayer alone is insufficient to bring about change. Rather, he indicates that one must do something about it in order to see outcomes. He implies that he had actually been wishing twenty years with no answer, but when he started to take action, he finally got a response. This could be interpreted as a call to action, motivating people to do something about it in order to cause the modification they prefer. It might also be analyzed as a tip that faith without works is dead. Douglass's quote motivates us to take action in order to produce the modification we want, instead of relying exclusively on prayer.