I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.
W. E. B. DU BOISViolence, 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.
More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes
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One 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.
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Men must not only know, they must act.
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A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.
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Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
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Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.
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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 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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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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But we do not merely protest; we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell:the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears; the dreaming of dreams by untwisted souls.
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I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.
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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 worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
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No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.
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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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Would America have been America without her Negro people?
W. E. B. DU BOIS