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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

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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
Liberty
Dishonesty
Wrong
Complaints
Must
Exposure
Unerring
Way
Complain
Unfailing
Plain
Ceaseless
Complaining
Complaint
Ancient
Agitation
Follow
Blunt

More quotes by 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 the possibility of infinite development.
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The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.
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Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.
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It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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.
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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
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At best, the natural good-nature is edged with complaint or has changed into sullenness and gloom. And now and then it blazes forth in veiled but hot anger.
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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Men must not only know, they must act.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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[We need reforms] to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and ancient and outworn creeds.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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
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We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.
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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I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Race prejudice decreases values, both real estate and human.
W. E. B. Du Bois