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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

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Acceptance Best Inspirational Season Time Work
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Dare Earth Oneself
The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Death Disappointment Happiness Hide Music People Suffering True Way World
Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, he belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambitions of our brighter minds. The way for people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ambition Joy Justice People Right Training World
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 chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Community Criminal Problem Punishment Training Young
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.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Bill Civilization Man Price Right Work
Men must not only know, they must act.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Action Man
The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Need Ourselves Power Save Slave
Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Crime Easy Oppression World
I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Divine Gift Human Laughter Love Pain World Wrong
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
The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Fall History Past Shadow Stars World
The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Democracy Experience Government Intelligence Learning People Right Theory Willing
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
We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Escape Reason Run Win World

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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