W.E.B. Du Bois

"The most explosive force in the world is truth."

"Never hesitate to sacrifice the present for the future."

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

"The price of culture is a lie."

"I believe in the Negro race; that it has a contribution to make to the world which no other race can make."

"To be civilized is to have refined tastes, high ideals and lofty aspirations."

"The black man's place is wherever he is big enough to take it."

"No nation ever rose that did not rest upon the broad and universal consent of the masses."

"The greatest guardians of liberty are and must be the common people themselves."

"The Negro has been presented with practically no facilities for acquiring technical knowledge."

"I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be treated with respect and dignity, no exceptions."

"The world wonders at the color line but not because of its obvious racial nature; the world wonders because so many dare to break it."

"All this your world has meant by 'nigger' is simply this,—a human being of less worth."

"Let me say plainly: the present system of the world is based on the foundation of racial discrimination."

"The chief problem in any community cursed with race prejudice is to see soul-deep into the souls of black folk."

"What do nations care about the cost of their wars compared with the loss of their trade?"

"We are not all born simultaneously, and when some men finish the journey before others, the fact makes neither them nor the journey extraordinary."

"The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the Shadowy and of Egypt the Sphinx."

"Art is a form of progress, a way of seeing, that precedes the revolution."

"The great change will come, but it will not come in this generation."

"I am satisfied that the gates of Hell can be opened by the tongue and that our words are indeed very powerful weapons."

"We have a right to criticize the church because we have a right to expect it to be the best thing in civilization."

"The Negro problem is a white problem born of white blindness and stupidity."

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others."

"The slave trade was an organized wholesale robbery of labor."

"All art is propaganda. It is written for a purpose to say something to someone."

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

"The prejudice of the world against the Negro is more powerful than all our efforts and all our virtues."

"I love the beauty of the Negro race because it is being born again."

"The capacity of any nation is the capacity of its individuals."