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The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.

W. E. B. Du Bois

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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
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More quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois

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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.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Had it not been for the race problem early thrust upon me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the established social order and of the economic development into which I was born.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The most ordinary Negro is a distinct gentleman, but it takes extraordinary training and opportunity to make the average white man anything but a hog.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Life has its pains and evils-its bitter disappointments but like a good novel and in healthful length of days, there is infinite joy in seeing the World, the most interesting of continued stories, unfold.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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
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One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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
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Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. How does it feel to be a problem?
W. E. B. Du Bois
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...in any land, in any country under modern free competition, to lay any class of weak and despised people, be they white, black, or blue, at the political mercy of their stronger, richer, and more resourceful fellows, is a temptation which human nature seldom has withstood and seldom will withstand.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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As Negro voting increased, Congress got an improved sense of hearing.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Ignorance is a cure for nothing.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise
W. E. B. Du Bois
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When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not how does he look, but what is his message?. . . The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty. . . .
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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
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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