56 W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes for You to Enjoy

W. E. B. Du Bois

American Writer

Born: Feb 23, 1868

Died: Aug 27, 1963

Black Education Men People Work World

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss Elbert Hubbard H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury William Arthur Ward

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again. W. E. B. Du Bois

Book Classic Written Again

The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing - a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. W. E. B. Du Bois

People World Matter Nineteenth Indeed Distinction Ancient Laughed Would Discovery Very Personal Modern Century Whiteness Twentieth Twentieth Century Among Thing

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

Alone Strength Thoughts Dark Asunder Torn Ideals Souls Dogged American Being Body Warring Whose Keeps Two

Reconstruction was a vast labor movement of ignorant, muddled, and bewildered white men who had been disinherited of land and labor and fought a long battle with sheer subsistence, hanging on the edge of poverty, eating clay and chasing slaves and now lurching up to manhood. W. E. B. Du Bois

Battle Men Long Chasing Poverty Edge White Reconstruction Eating Clay Vast Had Bewildered Sheer Been Up Labor Labor Movement Hanging Subsistence Movement Manhood Land Muddled Ignorant Who Fought Now Slaves

The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. W. E. B. Du Bois

Education Death Best Problem Men First Own Saved Other Guide Negroes Worst All Races Must Exceptional Developing Tenth Mass Contamination Talented Like First Of All Deal Going May Race Races Then Away Among

Strange, is it not, my brothers, how often in America those great watchwords of human energy - 'Be strong!' 'Know thyself!' 'Hitch your wagon to a star!' - how often these die away into dim whispers when we face these seething millions of black men? And yet do they not belong to them? Are they not their heritage as well as yours? W. E. B. Du Bois

Motivational Great Strange Strong Black Men Face Be Strong Energy Heritage Dim Those Brothers Thyself Know Know Thyself Well How Wagon Hitch America Die Often Human Them Your Yours Star Away Belong Millions

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 self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. W. E. B. Du Bois

Son World Other Seventh Gifted Indian See Born Only Through Self-Consciousness Veil Him Himself Sort Revelation Greek Yields American Roman Egyptian After Which Lets

From the day of its birth, the anomaly of slavery plagued a nation which asserted the equality of all men, and sought to derive powers of government from the consent of the governed. Within sound of the voices of those who said this lived more than half a million black slaves, forming nearly one-fifth of the population of a new nation. W. E. B. Du Bois

Government Day Equality Black Men Half Nation Birth Those More Voices New Powers Anomaly Sought Within Said Sound Governed Than Which Forming Derive Who Asserted Population Lived Nearly Million Consent Slavery Slaves

In the Constitution of the United States, Negroes are referred to as fellows although the word 'slave' is carefully avoided before the thirteenth amendment. W. E. B. Du Bois

Constitution Word Before Carefully States Negroes Constitution Of The United States Fellows Although Referred Amendment Avoided United United States Slave

The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of ignorance and selfishness. W. E. B. Du Bois

Good Ignorance Men Group Ruling Some Direct Individual Ideal Toward Reached Because Greatest Selfishness End Effort Human Persons Should Theoretically Many Actions Ever

Like Nemesis of Greek tragedy, the central problem of America after the Civil War, as before, was the black man: those four million souls whom the nation had used and degraded, and on whom the South had built an oligarchy similar to the colonial imperialism of today, erected on cheap colored labor and raising raw material for manufacture. W. E. B. Du Bois

Today War Man Problem Black Nation Before Those Degraded Civil Civil War Similar Colonial Colored Imperialism Had Cheap Raw Raw Material Like Souls Built Material South Tragedy Labor Greek America After Central Used Manufacture Whom Oligarchy Million Four Raising

For most people, it is enough for the world to know that they aspire. The world does not ask what their aspirations are, trusting that those aspirations are for the best and greatest things. But with regard to the Negroes in America, there is a feeling that their aspirations in some way are not consistent with the great ideals. W. E. B. Du Bois

Best Great People World Feeling Enough Way Consistent Negroes Those Some Ideals Know Most Greatest Does Greatest Things Trusting America Regard Ask Aspirations Aspire Things

I am a Bolshevik. W. E. B. Du Bois

Am Bolshevik

North as well as South, the Negroes have emerged from slavery into a serfdom of poverty and restricted rights. W. E. B. Du Bois

Rights Poverty Negroes Emerged Restricted Well South North Slavery

Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women's suffrage. W. E. B. Du Bois

Women Argument Every Suffrage

Before and after emancipation, the Negro, in self-defense, was propelled toward the white employer. The endowments of wealthy white men have developed great institutions of learning for the Negro, but the freedom of action on the part of these same universities has been curtailed in proportion as they are indebted to white philanthropies. W. E. B. Du Bois

Great Freedom Learning Men Self-Defense Before White Action Indebted Emancipation Has-Been Wealthy Proportion Developed Part Toward Institutions Employer Been Same Endowment After Universities

How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! W. E. B. Du Bois

Life How Real Human Hard Lowly Thing

There was not a single Negro slave owner who did not know dozens of Negroes just as capable of learning and efficiency as the mass of poor white people around and about, and some quite as capable as the average slaveholder. They had continually, in the course of the history of slavery, recognized such men. W. E. B. Du Bois

History Learning People Men Single White Negroes Recognized Some About Had Mass Know Course Around Continually Efficiency Did Owner Quite Just The History Of Capable Poor Average Who Dozens Slave Slavery

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. W. E. B. Du Bois

Problem Color Line Century Twentieth Twentieth Century

For fifteen years, I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder. W. E. B. Du Bois

Work Teacher Youth Half Out Were Years Wonder Bloom Mounting Anxious Manhood Disillusion Younger Fifteen Breathless Planning Fullness

My autobiography is a digressive illustration and exemplification of what race has meant in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. W. E. B. Du Bois

World Illustration Autobiography Race Centuries Meant

It can be safely asserted that since early Colonial times, the North has had a distinct race problem. Every one of these States had slaves, and at the beginning of Washington's Administration, there were 40,000 black slaves and 17,000 black freemen in this section. W. E. B. Du Bois

If the leading Negro classes cannot assume and bear the uplift of their own proletariat, they are doomed for all time. It is not a case of ethics; it is a plain case of necessity. The method by which this may be done is, first, for the American Negro to achieve a new economic solidarity. W. E. B. Du Bois

Time Achieve Ethics First Own Assume Proletariat Solidarity Classes All-Time Case Bear Economic Leading New Method American Uplift Done May Doomed Cannot Which Plain Necessity

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