W.E.B. Du Bois > Quotes

“The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“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.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn

“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.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Herein lies the tragedy of the age:
Not that men are poor, - all men know something of poverty.
Not that men are wicked, - who is good?
Not that men are ignorant, - what is truth?
Nay, but that men know so little of men.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, 'What else are women for?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, A W.E.B. Du Bois Reader

“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American...”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk & Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945 & Movements of the New Left 1950-1975

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Ignorance is a cure for nothing. ”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“What do nations care about the cost of war, if by spending a few hundred millions in steel and gunpowder they can gain a thousand millions in diamonds and cocoa?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“I believe that all men, black, brown, and white, are brothers.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strenth alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; if is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment from which forms the secret of civilization.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Perhaps the most extraordinary characteristic of current America is the attempt to reduce life to buying and selling. Life is not love unless love is sex and bought and sold. Life is not knowledge save knowledge of technique, of science for destruction. Life is not beauty except beauty for sale. Life is not art unless its price is high and it is sold for profit. All life is production for profit, and for what is profit but for buying and selling again?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

“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. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Three African-American Classics: up from Slavery, the Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—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 Bois

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“But 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.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“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 Souls of Black Folk

“To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“One 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 Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor--all men know something of poverty. Not that men are wicked--who is good? Not that men are ignorant--what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Here is the chance for young women and young men of devotion to lift again the banner of humanity and to walk toward a civilization which will be free and intelligent; which will be healthy and unafraid, and build in the world a culture led by black folk and joined by peoples of all colors and all races - without poverty, ignorance and disease!”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois: A Reader

“There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx's Capital.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense,
else what shall save us from a second slavery?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“And yet not a dream, but a mighty reality- a glimpse of the higher life, the broader possibilities of humanity, which is granted to the man who, amid the rush and roar of living, pauses four short years to learn what living means”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“The equality in political, industrial and social life which modern men must have in order to live, is not to be confounded with sameness. On the contrary, in our case, it is rather insistence upon the right of diversity; - upon the right of a human being to be a man even if he does not wear the same cut of vest, the same curl of hair or the same color of skin. Human equality does not even entail, as it is sometimes said, absolute equality of opportunity; for certainly the natural inequalities of inherent genius and varying gift make this a dubious phrase. But there is more and more clearly recognized minimum of opportunity and maximum of freedom to be, to move and to think, which the modern world denies to no being which it recognizes as a real man.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk