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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

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

Fire Mindset Play Training Weakness Wild
Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Efficiant Fear Honesty Ignorance Knowledge White
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
The cause of war is preparation for war.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Deep Preparation War
Would America have been America without her Negro people?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Community Herself People
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
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
Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Choice Disappointment Greatness Inspirational Life Possible Spirit
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
Men must not only know, they must act.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Action Man
Whiteness is ownership of the earth.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Earth White
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
Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. How does it feel to be a problem?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Difficult Feeling Frame Right
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
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 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

I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.

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I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.

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