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 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.
More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes
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The 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.
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Whether 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.
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A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
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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
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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 must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong – this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it.
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Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
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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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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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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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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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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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Progress in human affairs is more often a pull than a push, a surging forward of the exceptional man, and the lifting of his duller brethren slowly and painfully to his vantage-ground.
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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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Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.
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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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Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
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Men must not only know, they must act.
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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS -
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
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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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It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!
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Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
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Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.
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There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.
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It 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 BOIS