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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.

W. E. B. Du Bois

It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ancient Nature Stars Young
The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world’s need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this – with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need – this life is hell.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Heaven Hell Life Need Return Satisfaction Work World
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Equality Force Rise Woman
Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. How does it feel to be a problem?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Difficult Feeling Frame Right
There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Determination Equality Force Rise Woman
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
The cause of war is preparation for war.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Deep Preparation War
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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Book Dee Mathematics Reading Science Yourself
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
Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Education Life Simplicity Teaching Thinking Work
Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Development Education Human Training Wall
The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin–the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ability Clothes Determination Greatness Skin Wonderful World
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
I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Black Brother Development Men Myself Opportunity Possible Soul 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
We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Achievement Oppression Secure Soul White Yourself

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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