When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not how does he look, but what is his message? The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty.
W. E. B. DU BOISIn 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.
More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes
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A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.
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Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,- criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led, – this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
The world is shrinking together; it is finding itself neighbor to itself in strange, almost magic degree.
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Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
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To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
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I believe in pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves.
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We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.
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Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.
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There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.
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The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world’s need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this – with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need – this life is hell.
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But art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows Beauty, that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its headkerchiefs; that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance, too.
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Ignorance is a cure for nothing.
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The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
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There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS