It would certainly be soothing if one could readily believe all this; and yet there are too many ugly facts for everything to be thus easily explained away.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “It would certainly be soothing if one could readily believe all this; and yet there are too many ugly facts for…”
Editor's note · Context
This line expresses skepticism towards simplistic explanations of historical events, insisting that inconvenient truths cannot be easily dismissed.
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Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.