The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
W. E. B. DU BOISThe 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.
More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes
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I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.
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The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.
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Race prejudice decreases values, both real estate and human.
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Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
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The cause of war is preparation for war.
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The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?
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The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.
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The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.
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The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.
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As Negro voting increased, Congress got an improved sense of hearing.
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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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We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.
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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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To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
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When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.
W. E. B. DU BOIS