A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.
W. E. B. DU BOISBut 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.
More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes
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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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.
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There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
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Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
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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 -
The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
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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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
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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A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
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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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
For education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.
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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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The future woman must have a life work and economic independence. She must have the right of motherhood at her own discretion.
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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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS