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Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.

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
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
Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Crime Easy Oppression World
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
Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Learning Peace Teacher Yourself
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
I believe in pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Justice Myself Pride Race
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
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
Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Choice Democracy Destroy Ignorance
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
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
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 today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Deep Freedom Men Slave
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
Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,- criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led, – this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Democracy Government Honesty Leadership Safety Soul Touch

Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.

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Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.

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