Powerful Quotes by W.E.B. Du Bois

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.

The talented tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people.

Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.

The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay.

I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others.

The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

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.

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.

There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

Powerful Quotes by W.E.B. Du Bois part 2

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line, I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas.

Freedom is not given, it is won.

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.

In seeking the truth, you may have to throw a few falsehoods away.

Ignorance is a cure for nothing.

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.

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.

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.

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

To be a Negro in America and relatively conscious is to be in a constant state of rage.

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 the possibility of infinite development.

I am a radical on racial matters, but never until now have I advocated changes in the legal status of women.

Now is the time when we must take our destiny into our own hands, and stand boldly for the greatness of our race.

The main thing to be done is to establish that we have a place and a function and a great responsibility in the world.

There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color limitation.

I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers.

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

We want all of our people to be free and equal members of society.

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.

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.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

The lamp of history will illuminate the dark corners of racial hate and prejudice.

The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay.

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.

Men of all races have died, are dying, till death takes the last man, for the cause of the black man.