John Brown Quotes

“The price of repression is greater than the cost of liberty. The degradation of men costs something both to the degraded and those who degrade.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“So Kansas was free. In vain did the sullen Senate in Washington fume and threaten and keep the young state knocking for admission; the game had been played and lost and Kansas was free. Free because the slave barons played for an imperial stake in defiance of modern humanity and economic development. Free because strong men had suffered and fought not against slavery but against slaves in Kansas. Above all, free because one man hated slavery and on a terrible night rode down with his sons among the shadows of the Swamp of the Swan—that long, low-winding and sombre stream "fringed everywhere with woods" ​and dark with bloody memory. Forty-eight hours they lingered there, and then of a pale May morning rode up to the world again. Behind them lay five twisted, red and mangled corpses. Behind them rose the stifled wailing of widows and little children. Behind them the fearful driver gazed and shuddered. But before them rode a man, tall, dark, grim-faced and awful. His hands were red and his name was John Brown. Such was the cost of freedom.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“We have here a wonderful industrial machine, but a machine quickly rather than carefully built, formed of forcing rather than of growth, involving sinful and unnecessary expense. Better smaller production and more equitable distribution; better fewer miles of railway and more honor, truth, and liberty; better fewer millionaires and more contentment”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“What would be the cost of liberty? What would be the cost of giving the great stocks of mankind every reasonable help and incentive to self-development—opening the avenues of opportunity freely, spreading knowledge, suppressing war and cheating, and treating men and women as equals the world over whenever and wherever they attain equality?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“Four things make life worthy to most men: to move, to know, to love, to aspire.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“Was John Brown simply an episode, or was he an eternal truth? And if a truth, how speaks that truth today?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown A Biography of American abolitionist

“You had better—all you people of the South— prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question. It must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it, and the sooner you commence that preparation, the better for you. You may dispose of me very easily—I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is still to be settled— this Negro question, I mean. The end of that is not yet.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“John Brown taught us that the cheapest price to pay for liberty is its cost to-day.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“a man whose leadership lay not in his office, wealth or influence, but in the white flame of his utter devotion to an ideal.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“I have outlived nearly half of all my numerous family, and I ought to realize that in any event a large proportion of my life is traveled over.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“I trust that getting or losing money does not entirely engross our attention; but I am sensible that it quite occupies too large a share in it. To get a little property together to leave, as the world would have done, is really a low mark to be firing at through life.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“But Governor Wise interrupted: "Mr. Brown, the silver of your hair is reddened by the blood of crime, and you should eschew these hard words and think upon eternity. You are suffering from wounds, perhaps fatal; and should you escape death from these causes, you must submit to a trial which may involve death. Your confessions justify the presumption that you will be found guilty; and even now you are committing a felon under the laws of Virgnia, by uttering sentimes like these. It is better you should turn your attention to your eternal future than be dealing in denunciations which can only injure you."
John Brown replied: "Governor, I have from all apearances not more than fifteen or twenty years the start of you in the journey to that eternity of which you kindly warn me; and whether my time here shall be fifteen months, or fifteen days, or fifteen hours, I am equally prepared to go. There is an eternity behind and an eternity before; and this little speck in the centre, however long, is but comparatively a minute. The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling, and I therefore tell you to be prepared. I am prepared. You have a heavy responsibility, and it behooves you to prepare more than it does me.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown

“I have sailed over a somewhat stormy stea for nearly half a century, and have experienced enough to teach me thoroughly that I may most reasonably buckle up and be prepared for the tempest. Mary, let us try to maintain a cheerful self-command while we are tossing up and down, and let our motto still be action, action,--as we have but one life to live.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown