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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

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 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
The world is shrinking together; it is finding itself neighbor to itself in strange, almost magic degree.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Magic Strange Togetherness 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
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
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
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
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
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
It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ancient Nature Stars Young
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 most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Devil Doubt Fire Race Sincere Woman
Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Liberty Responsibility Training
It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disenfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Divine Growth Kind Man Money Power Right Thinking Wisdom
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
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Color Design Present Problem Time
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
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 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
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
Would America have been America without her Negro people?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Community Herself People
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 music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Death Disappointment Happiness Hide Music People Suffering True Way World
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
As Negro voting increased, Congress got an improved sense of hearing.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hear Improvement Vote
We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Escape Reason Run Win World

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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