Booker T. Washington Quotes

There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.

Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves. It's wonderful when the people believe in their leader. It's more wonderful when the leader believes in their people! You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.

Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come

Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.

We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.

Never get to the point where you will be ashamed to ask anybody for information. The ignorant man will always be ignorant if he fears that by asking another for information he will display ignorance. Better once display your ignorance of a certain subject than always know nothing of it.

Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragement he would not give up.

I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

Think about it: we went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.

Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.

The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate.

Start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

The wisest among my race understand that agitations of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.

You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.

I never liked the atmosphere of Washington . I early saw that it was impossible to build up a race of which the leaders were spending most of their time, thought and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Great men cultivate love...only little men cherish a spirit of hatred

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.

An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.

Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.

Never let your work drive you. Master it and keep it in complete control.

Those who have accomplished the greatest results are those...who never grow excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed, patient and polite.

There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to rebel, more courage not to strike back than to retaliate, more courage to be silent than to speak.

Ignorance is more costly to any State than education.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.

...those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms [of the rich] do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much sufering would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises.

In order to be successful in any undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.

I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

Success always leaves footprints.

The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts.

The thing to do when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.