afro-art-chick:

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.”

“It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.”

“The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?”

“Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.”

“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.”

“I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.”

Happy Birthday to  sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor William Edward Burghardt “W. E. B.” Du Bois (b. February 23, 1868)