35 Inspirational W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes On Success

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He had risen to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists that wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, provided that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities. May these W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes On Success inspire you to take action so that you may live your dreams.

1. “Men must not only know, they must act.” W. E. B. Du Bois

2. “Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.” W. E. B. Du Bois

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

4. “The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.” W. E. B. Du Bois

5. “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

6. “There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.” W. E. B. Du Bois

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

8. “There may often be excuse for doing things poorly in this world, but there is never any excuse for calling a poorly done thing, well done.” W. E. B. Du Bois

9. “We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.” W. E. B. Du Bois

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

11. “Today I see more clearly than yesterday that the back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellow men.” W. E. B. Du Bois

12. “The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.” W. E. B. Du Bois

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

14. “No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.” W. E. B. Du Bois

15. “One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner, and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.” W. E. B. Du Bois

16. “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” W. E. B. Du Bois

17. “There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.” W. E. B. Du Bois

18. “This the American black man knows: his fight here is a fight to the finish. Either he dies or wins. If he wins it will be by no subterfuge or evasion of amalgamation . He will enter modern civilization here in America as a black man on terms of perfect and unlimited equality with any white man, or he will enter not at all. Either extermination root and branch, or absolute equality. There can be no compromise. This is the last great battle of the west.” W. E. B. Du Bois

19. “Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.” W. E. B. Du Bois

20. “It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disenfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind.” W. E. B. Du Bois

21. “I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.” W. E. B. Du Bois

22. “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

23. “Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.” W. E. B. Du Bois

24. “Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.” W. E. B. Du Bois

25. “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 Bois

26. “Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stands up and protests. The protest need not be merely physical-the throwing of stones and bullets-if it is mental, spiritual; if it expresses itself in silent, persistent dissatisfaction, the cost to the oppressor is terrific.” W. E. B. Du Bois

27. “Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.” W. E. B. Du Bois

28. “Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.” W. E. B. Du Bois

29. “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.” W. E. B. Du Bois

30. “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.” W. E. B. Du Bois

31. “There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.” W. E. B. Du Bois

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

33. “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.” W. E. B. Du Bois

34. “In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no ‘two evils’ exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.” W. E. B. Du Bois

35. “Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.” W. E. B. Du Bois

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