Quotes by W. Bois

• 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.
• 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 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
• 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.
• Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
• A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.
• 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?
• To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.