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 BOISMost men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it.
More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes
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The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.
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I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.
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I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.
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Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.
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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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Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.
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So often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers.
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Life has its pains and evils-its bitter disappointments; but like a good novel and in healthful length of days, there is infinite joy in seeing the World, the most interesting of continued stories, unfold.
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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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The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.
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Herein lies the tragedy of the age: Not that men are poor, – all men know something of poverty. Not that men are wicked, – who is good? Not that men are ignorant, – what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
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Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
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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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A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
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Men must not only know, they must act.
W. E. B. DU BOIS