black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

So often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers.

W. E. B. Du Bois

We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Achievement Oppression Secure Soul White Yourself
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hard Land Men Poor Race
Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down… Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Education Teacher Teaching Work Yourself
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Glory Pay Simplicity Thinking Truth Work
I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Divine Gift Human Laughter Love Pain World Wrong
Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Greatness Hope Human Life Progress
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Dare Earth Oneself
The future woman must have a life work and economic independence. She must have the right of motherhood at her own discretion.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Future Independence Life Mom Right Work
The cause of war is preparation for war.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Deep Preparation War
Progress in human affairs is more often a pull than a push, a surging forward of the exceptional man, and the lifting of his duller brethren slowly and painfully to his vantage-ground.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Human Justice Men Pain Progress
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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Bill Civilization Man Price Right Work
The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Fall History Past Shadow Stars World
I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Education Man Myself True
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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Book Dee Mathematics Reading Science Yourself
It is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of yours to blossom and bear its fruit. So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world’s work to its highest perfection.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hurt Live Man Perfection Rain Reality Storm Stress Suffering Woman Work World
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, — the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Appearance Darkness Light People Problem Race Sea
When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not how does he look, but what is his message? The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Appearance Beautiful Men Thinking Vision Woman World
In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no ‘two evils’ exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Democracy Election Evil Existence Myself Vote
Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Art Atmosphere Creation Influence Ourselves Try
One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Death Greatness Human Life Live Possible Progress Simplicity Time
Life has its pains and evils-its bitter disappointments; but like a good novel and in healthful length of days, there is infinite joy in seeing the World, the most interesting of continued stories, unfold.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Disappointment Goodness Joy Life Pain Story World
One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Death Greatness Human Life Live Possible Progress Simplicity Time
A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Door Himself Look Marriage Men Stand
All womanhood is hampered today because the world on which it is emerging is a world that tries to worship both virgins and mothers and in the end despises motherhood and despoils virgins.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hate Mom Try Woman World Worship
But art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows Beauty, that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its headkerchiefs; that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance, too.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Art Color Dance Flame Simplicity Sunset Work World
The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Freedom Man Work
I believe in pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Justice Myself Pride Race

So often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers.

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So often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers.

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Popular Authors

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