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A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.

W. E. B. Du Bois

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
Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Liberty Responsibility Training
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hard Land Men Poor Race
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
Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Deep Freedom Men Slave
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Equality Force Rise Woman
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
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
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

A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.

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A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.

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