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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

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
Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Choice Democracy Destroy Ignorance
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
Whiteness is ownership of the earth.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Earth White
To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Fire Mindset Play Training Weakness Wild
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
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
The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Atheist Color Intelligence Kind Men
Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Education Life Simplicity Teaching Thinking Work
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
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
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
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
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
There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Force Human Peace Person Priosn Soul Success
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Equality Force Rise Woman
The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world’s need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this – with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need – this life is hell.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Heaven Hell Life Need Return Satisfaction Work World
There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Accomplishment Color Democracy Peace Perfection Race
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
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
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
Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Belief Color Future Humanity Men Race 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
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 is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Equality Force Rise Woman
Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Identity Poor Protection Rich Theft White
Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Development Education Human Training Wall

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

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To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

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