black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!

W. E. B. Du Bois

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
The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin–the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ability Clothes Determination Greatness Skin Wonderful 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
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
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 stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Fire Mindset Play Training Weakness Wild
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
As Negro voting increased, Congress got an improved sense of hearing.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hear Improvement Vote
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
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
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
The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Community Criminal Problem Punishment Training Young
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
Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Choice Democracy Destroy Ignorance
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
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 must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong – this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Failure Follow Honesty Liberty Wrong
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
Would America have been America without her Negro people?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

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

Children Learning Peace Teacher Yourself

It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes