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Quotations by W. E. B. Du Bois 15 Found Born: Sunday, February 23, 1868 A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again. A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills. An American, a Negro... two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life. But what of black women?... I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire. Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men. If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery? The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires. When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings. |
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