A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
W. E. B. DU BOISA classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
W. E. B. DU BOISBetween me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. How does it feel to be a problem?
W. E. B. DU BOISWhen 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 BOISThe time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.
W. E. B. DU BOISWhether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down… Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life.
W. E. B. DU BOISThe 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.
W. E. B. DU BOISOne ever feels his twoness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
W. E. B. DU BOISOne thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. DU BOISUnfortunately 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 BOISNow 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 BOISWe shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.
W. E. B. DU BOISBelieve in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
W. E. B. DU BOISIt is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of yours to blossom and bear its fruit. So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world’s work to its highest perfection.
W. E. B. DU BOISIgnorance is a cure for nothing.
W. E. B. DU BOISI 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 BOISHonest 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