W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

People should only profit to the extent they make other peoples lives better.

The only possible alternative to being either the oppressed or the oppressor is voluntary cooperation for the greatest good of all.

If I was asked to define socialism, I would not seek its definition in the texts of Marx or Lenin. I would rather say: it is the religion of life, and the triumph of life over death. By opening the door of employment for everyone, and allowing the gifts and virtues of all human beings to blossom, flower and be fruitful, it preserves what rightfully belongs to life, leaving death nothing but dried meat and rotten bones.

As man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible for him to attain happiness save by seeking the happiness of others, so does it seem to be of the nature of things that individuals and classes can obtain their own just rights only by struggling for the rights of others.

I believe in cooperating for the common good.

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

The ethic of liberal individualism has so deeply permeated the psyches of blacks... of all classes that we have little support for a political ethic of communalism that promotes the sharing of resources.

Agreeing to share prosperity, rather than let it divide us, is infinitely preferable to the alternative.

I guess what I learned about myself is I'm a bit of a socialist; I want everyone on the set to get equal treatment and credit.

We all do better when we all do better.

In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers yet as one hand in all things essential to mutual progress..

The fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to none.

When the fruits of civilization, created by all, are enjoyed in common by all, then civilization is secure. Not till then.

What is not good for everyone is not good for anyone.

This Government intends no injury to honest business. The processes we follow in seeking social justice do not, in adding to general prosperity, take from one and give to another. In this modern world, the spreading out of opportunity ought not to consist of robbing Peter to pay Paul. In other words, we are concerned with more than mere subtraction and addition. We are concerned with multiplication also -- multiplication of wealth through cooperative action, wealth in which all can share.

No longer need capitalist and worker, farmer and clerk, city and countryside, struggle to divide our bounty. By working shoulder to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty of all.

There are neither mendicants no paupers as long as there are any rich people among them. Their kindness, humanity, and courtesy not only make them liberal with what they have, but cause them to possess hardly anything except in common. A whole village must be without corn before any individual can be obliged to endure privation

In the past, civilization has been a heritage enjoyed by a few upon a basis of the brutalization of the vast multitude …. nation aims at a civilization of the whole resting upon the whole, and only made possible by the educated co-operation of an educated whole.

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community...Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own

To increase the power, develop the resources and promote the happiness of a Confederacy, it is requisite there should be so much of homogeneity that the welfare of every portion would be the aim of the whole.

I think most people agree with the idea of shared sacrifice, but for many, when push comes to shove, that principle goes out the window.

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.

Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy greater than anything else can give.

I think the basis - the foundation - has already been laid for a society where people will work together and enjoy the wealth of the whole nation together. I think this will be accomplished because this is the theme of the revolutionary government's program.