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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

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
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: Not that men are poor, – all men know something of poverty. Not that men are wicked, – who is good? Not that men are ignorant, – what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Age Goodness Ignorance Knowledge Lying Men Poor Tragedy
But we do not merely protest; we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell:the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears; the dreaming of dreams by untwisted souls.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Demand Dream Expression Freedom Human Soul Spirit
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
Would America have been America without her Negro people?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Community Herself People
Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Deep Freedom Men Slave
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
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
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
Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Education Life Simplicity Teaching Thinking Work
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
One ever feels his twoness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Alone Body Darkness Feeling Soul Strength
I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Black Brother Development Men Myself Opportunity Possible Soul Time
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Equality Force Rise Woman
No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Goodness Selfish
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

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.

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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.

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