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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

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Learning Peace Teacher Yourself
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
To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Fire Mindset Play Training Weakness Wild
Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Crime Easy Oppression World
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
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
Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, he belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambitions of our brighter minds. The way for people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ambition Joy Justice People Right Training World
As Negro voting increased, Congress got an improved sense of hearing.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hear Improvement Vote
The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Better Change Death Hurt Kill People Time
For education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Content Dangerous Education Kind Men Revolution Satisfaction
The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Class Device Devil Diversity Innocent Justice Sin
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
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
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

Learning Life Purpose Selfish Trust
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
There may often be excuse for doing things poorly in this world, but there is never any excuse for calling a poorly done thing, well done.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Job Poor Work World

I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.

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I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.

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