Web DuBois Quotes: Insightful Words from an Influential Thinker
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
Education is not just about knowledge, but about how to use that knowledge to make a positive impact on society.
The problem of the 20th century is the problem of color line.
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over.
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow.
Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
The great problem of the concert of races is not the abolition of difference, but the multiplication of differences.
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.
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
There is always something better to be found if you are searching for it.
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life.
The power of the ballot we need in sheer self-defense, — else what shall save us from a second slavery?
We cannot escape our past, but we can change our future.
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
Knowledge is power, but it is only potential power. Action is the actualization of that power.
The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.
The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. It is much easier to repair bad habits than good ones. Memories are easily acquired in youth. Youths are like wax in the hands of their teachers; they may be turned in any direction and formed into any shape.
To solve the problem of the color line in America, I shall devote my life.
The cause of the strike by the workers is poverty. At bottom nothing else but poverty. The State cannot prevent or forbid the strike; it can punish the worker only by sending him to prison as a criminal. That the employer, similarly brought to want, does not go to jail is a matter of social policy and has nothing to do with justice.
The end of censorship is the beginning of sensuality.
I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea.
We can’t fully understand our present, without first understanding our past.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
In the matter of education, I urge the founding in Atlanta of such an institution as I have described.
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
The true college will ever have one goal – not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.
I have failed as a champion of race unity if any dissension mars the hope I see.
I believe in liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love.
The most ordinary negro is a distinct addition to American life.
The world should be safe for the best things in it–the sunshine of heaven and earth, the essays of Emerson, the increase of knowledge and the free air of opportunity.
Behind the veil, forbidden to white Americans, is a vast kingdom of culture, beauty and sophistication – damnably acquired through patient fidelity to human values, through suffering, and tragedy.
How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory, and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.
Either America will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States.
The pervasive consciousness of the world is the consciousness of crisis.
At Atlanta I saw a glimpse of the great power of the future south, and certainly saw no danger from any of the three millions of negro citizens in that splendid state or the other seven million of the black Southern country.
Adults must be taught in terms of their lives.
Through sorrow and sacrifice, America will find the courage and strength to achieve greatness.
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
I believe in the deity of Greece, the gods of America, the demon dreams of China, and the crocodile men of Africa. The worship of these gods, the thralldom of nations, the dissipation of manhood, and the debasement of womanhood are the four great evils against which we protest.
Agreement and solidarity are necessary to individuals and groups.
If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.