W. E. B. DU BOIS

But what of black women?... I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

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.

Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.

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.

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.

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

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.

When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.

The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?

To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.

Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.

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.

The cause of war is preparation for war.

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.

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.

The price of freedom is less than the cost of repression.

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 and 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.

The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization.

The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.

There is no scientific reason why there should not be intermarriage between two human beings who happen to be of different race or color …. The determination of any white person not to have children with Negro, Chinese, or Irish blood is a desire which demands respect. In like manner, the tastes of others, no matter how few or many, who disagree, demand equal respect…. The determination of any white person not to have children with Negro, Chinese, or Irish blood is a desire which demands respect. In like manner, the tastes of others, no matter how few or many, who disagree, demand equal respect.

In the matter of purely personal contacts like marriage, intimate friendships and sociable gatherings, 'equality' means the right to select one's own mates and close companions. The basis of choice may be cultured taste or vacant whim, but it is an unquestionable right so long as my free choice does not deny equal freedom on the part of others. No one can for a moment question the preference of a white man to marry a white woman or invite only white friends to dinner. But by the same token if a white Desdemona prefers a black Othello; or if Theodore Roosevelt includes among his dinner guests Booker T. Washington, their right also is undeniable and its restriction by law or custom an inadmissible infringement of civil rights.

Don't under any circumstances invest any money on the Black Star Line. The District Attorney of New York County has pronounced its methods fraudulent.