W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

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• Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Disappointment, Greatness, Spirit

  W. E. B. Du Bois (1980). “Prayers for Dark People”

  369 Copy quote

• Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Ignorance, America, United States

  474 Copy quote

• There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Success, Peace, Determination

  450 Copy quote

• Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Future, Harvest Time, Years

  W. E. B. Du Bois (1980). “Prayers for Dark People”

  386 Copy quote

• Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Teacher, Peace, Children

  379 Copy quote

• There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Determined, Force, Equal

  341 Copy quote

• Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Thinking, Teach, Working It

  W.E.B. Du Bois (2013). “W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings”, p.60, Courier Corporation

  190 Copy quote

• Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Men, Black, United States

  322 Copy quote

• Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Harvest Time, Done, Today

  W. E. B. Du Bois (1980). “Prayers for Dark People”

  114 Copy quote

• We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong - this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Liberty, Agitation, Complaining

  292 Copy quote

• One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner . . . and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Philosophy, Men, Ideas

  "Whitewashing Black History Month" by Gary Younge, www.theguardian.com. February 1, 2012.

  314 Copy quote

• To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Men, Race, Land

  The Souls of Black Folk ch. 1 (1903)

  272 Copy quote

• Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Men, Law, People

  "The Souls of Black Folk". Book by W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903.

  272 Copy quote

• Today I see more clearly than yesterday that the back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellow men.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Lying, Ignorance, Men

  Preface to reprint of The Souls of Black Folk (1969).

  216 Copy quote

• Ignorance is a cure for nothing.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Ignorance, Cures

  33 Copy quote

• In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no 'two evils' exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Party, Believe, Names

  280 Copy quote

• I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Laughter, Pain, World

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “Dusk of Dawn (The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois)”, p.193, Oxford University Press

  210 Copy quote

• Men must not only know, they must act.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Men, Knows

  29 Copy quote

• The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Memorial Day

  John Brown ch. 13 (1909)

  115 Copy quote

• The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Work, Thinking, Pay

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois”, p.69, Oxford University Press

  38 Copy quote

• Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Art, Atmosphere, Trying

  68 Copy quote

• Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Education, Wall, School

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays”, p.220, Oxford University Press

  17 Copy quote

• The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin--the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Determination, Clothes, Skins

  17 Copy quote

• Would America have been America without her Negro people?

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  America, People, Civil Rights

  W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington (2012). “Three African-American Classics: Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, p.329, Courier Corporation

  12 Copy quote

• There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Courage, Coward, Earth

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “Dusk of Dawn (The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois)”, p.62, Oxford University Press

  28 Copy quote

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