Quote

We black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

W. E. B. Du Bois
Age: 95 †
Born: 1868
Born: January 1
Died: 1963
Died: August 27
Autobiographer
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Photographer
Poet
Social Worker
Great Barrington
Massachusetts
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
WEB Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois
Seems
Sole
Men
Reverence
Desert
Dollars
Seem
Simple
Smartness
Faith
Dusty
Black
Oasis

More quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois

Image
If you want to feel humor too exquisite and subtle for translation, sit invisibly among a gang of Negro workers.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
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
Image
I believe that there are human stocks with whom it is physically unwise to intermarry, but to think that these stocks are all colored or that there are no such white stocks is unscientific and false.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
But we do not merely protest we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell:the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears the dreaming of dreams by untwisted souls.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
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.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
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
Image
The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
In the treatment of the child the world foreshadows its own future and faith. All words and all thinking lead to the child, - to that vast immortality and wide sweep of infinite possibility which the child represents.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
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
Image
It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
Unless modern civilization is a failure, it is entirely feasible and practicable for two races in such essential political, economic and religious harmony as the white and colored people in America, to develop side by side in peace and mutual happiness, the peculiar contribution which each has to make to the culture of their common country.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
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
Image
Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Image
The merchant must be no more pessimist than optimist, since pessimism induces him to hold back his capital but optimism induces him to take such risks that he has more to tear than to hope. Abu al'Fadl Ja'far al-Dimishqi (c. 9th century) Arab writer. The Beauties of Commerce Business pays ... philanthropy begs.
W. E. B. Du Bois