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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

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 believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Black Brother Development Men Myself Opportunity Possible Soul Time
Progress in human affairs is more often a pull than a push, a surging forward of the exceptional man, and the lifting of his duller brethren slowly and painfully to his vantage-ground.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Human Justice Men Pain Progress
The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Need Ourselves Power Save Slave
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 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
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
Men must not only know, they must act.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Action Man
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
Ignorance is a cure for nothing.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ignorance One Liner
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
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
Race prejudice decreases values, both real estate and human.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Human Prejudice Race Reality Value Worth
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
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

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.

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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.

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