W.E.B. Du Bois: “Like fireflies nesting in the hand of God gleams the city, dim-swathed by fairy palms.”

Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.

Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.

Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this…

So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.