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The difference of development, North and South, is explained as a sort of working out of cosmic social and economic law. ... In this sweeping mechanistic interpretation, there is no room for the real plot of the story, for the clear mistake and guilt of building a new slavery of the working class in the midst of a fateful experiment in democracy.

— W. E. B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America (1935)

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History

More quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois

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

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

John Brown: A Biography (1909)

I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.

The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

Niagara Movement Speech (1905)

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

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If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

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I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: W. E. B. Du Bois (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.