Booker T Washington Quotes

We must reinforce argument with results. ~ Booker T. Washington

Too often the educational value of doing well what is done, however little, is overlooked. One thing well done prepares the mind to do the next thing better. Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problem thoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered. ~ Booker T. Washington

In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. 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 overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race. ~ Booker T. Washington

In proportion as one renders service he becomes great. ~ Booker T. Washington

If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christ like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian. ~ Booker T. Washington

No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward. ~ Booker T. Washington

The time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to. ~ Booker T. Washington

There is no escape - man drags man down, or man lifts man up. ~ Booker T. Washington

The longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for-and dying for, if need be-is the opportunity of making someone else more happy. ~ Booker T. Washington

Education is not what a person is able to hold in his head, so much as it is what a person is able to find.I ~ Booker T. Washington

The white man who begins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. ~ Booker T. Washington

My experience is that people who call themselves "The Intellectuals" understand theories, but they do not understand things. I have long been convinced that, if these men could have gone into the South and taken up and become interested in some practical work which would have brought them in touch with people and things, the whole world would have looked very different to them. Bad as conditions might have seemed at first, when they saw that actual progress was being made, they would have taken a more hopeful view of the situation. ~ Booker T. Washington

Success always leaves footprints. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

Today we ought to be able to see first that Booker T. Washington faced a situation in which he was seeking desperately for a way out, and he could see no way out except capitulation. ~ C.L.R. James

Character, not circumstance, makes the person. ~ Booker T. Washington

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top. ~ Booker T. Washington

To you, to the scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honoured this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander is not dead. Though Boston erected no monument and history recorded no story, in you and in the loyal race which you represent, Robert Gould Shaw would have a monument which time could not wear away, ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man's clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the white man's language, and professes the white man's religion. ~ Booker T. Washington

Two of the great leaders of the past - Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass - had White fathers - who deserted them. Now Margo Jefferson, who is hard on me and the fellas, wrote in the Times that she has nocturnal, erotic fantasies about John Wayne. What's up with these feminists? Do you see these double standards these feminists have? They dream about John Wayne, but they're hard on us [Black men]. ~ Ishmael Reed

Leaders have devoted themselves to politics, little knowing, it seems
that political independence disappears without economic independence
that economic independence is the foundation of political independence. ~ Booker T. Washington

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

In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him. ~ Booker T. Washington

Frederick Douglass, of sainted memory, once, in addressing his race, used these words: "We are to prove that we can better our own condition. One way to do this is to accumulate property. This may sound to you like a new gospel. You have been accustomed to hear that money is the root of all evil, etc. On the other hand, property - money, if you please - will purchase for us the only condition by which any people can rise to the dignity of genuine manhood; for without property there can be no leisure, without leisure there can be no thought, without thought there can be no invention, without invention there can be no progress. ~ Booker T. Washington

No one can degrade us except ourselves. ~ Booker T. Washington

To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' ~ Booker T. Washington

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. ~ Booker T. Washington

You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too. ~ Booker T. Washington

Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is. ~ Booker T. Washington

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 discouragements he would not give up. Make up your minds that you are going to overcome every discouragement, and that you are not going to let any discouragement overcome you. Those ~ Booker T. Washington

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists. ~ Booker T. Washington

I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise. ~ Booker T. Washington

I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice. ~ Booker T. Washington

Never let your work drive you. Master it and keep it in complete control. ~ Booker T. Washington

Many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their employees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting them feel that the interests of the two are the same. ~ Booker T. Washington

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts. ~ Booker T. Washington

Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than to be in bad company ~ Booker T. Washington

Too often, it seems to me, in missionary and educational work among underdeveloped races, people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before, or is being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mould, regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be accomplished. ~ Booker T. Washington

I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim ""Do not get others to do what you can do yourself."" My motto on the other hand is; ""Do not do that which others can do as well. ~ Booker T. Washington

I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done. ~ Booker T. Washington

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

The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build. ~ Booker T. Washington

I said that any individual who learned to do something better than anybody else - learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner - had solved his problem, regardless of the colour of his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be respected. ~ Booker T. Washington

An inch of progress is worth a yard of complaint. ~ Booker T. Washington

The great human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal. ~ Booker T. Washington

Ignorance is more costly to any State than education. ~ Booker T. Washington

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants. ~ Booker T. Washington

Great men cultivate love and only little men cherish a spirit of hatred; assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. ~ Booker T. Washington

I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice. ~ Booker T. Washington

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

In my contact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls -- with the great outside world. No man whose vision is bounded by colour can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world. In meeting men, in many places, I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice. I often say to our students, in the course of my talks to them on Sunday evenings in the chapel, that the longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for -- and dying for, if need be -- is the opportunity of making some one else more happy and more useful. ~ Booker T. Washington

We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers. ~ Booker T. Washington

I learned what education was expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labor. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labor, but learned to love labor, not alone for its financial value, but for labor's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

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

If you can't read, it's going to be hard to realize dreams. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

The growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between the North and South after the frightful differences of a generation ago ought to be a source of deep congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the war; but if that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civic death of those same black men, with permanent legislation into a position of inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon by every consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all civilized methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him. ~ Booker T. Washington

Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to study men and things! ~ Booker T. Washington

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. ~ Booker T. Washington

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

You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals. ~ Booker T. Washington

Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

Now, whenever I hear any one advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who would do this. I know that the one who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity for the highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know that he is trying to stop the progress of the world, and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to stop the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body across the track, as to try to stop the growth of the world in the direction of giving mankind more intelligence, more culture, more skill, more liberty, and in the direction of extending more sympathy and more brotherly kindness. The ~ Booker T. Washington

No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. ~ Booker T. Washington

A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up. ~ Booker T. Washington

Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances. ~ Booker T. Washington

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. ~ Booker T. Washington

healthy. I believe that when one can grow to the point where he loves his work, this gives him a kind of strength that is most valuable. ~ Booker T. Washington

In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed up on his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success. ~ Booker T. Washington

That my mother had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation of seeming to be that which she was not - of ~ Booker T. Washington

If you truly want to measure the success of a man, you do not measure it by a position he has achieved, but by the obstacles he has overcome. ~ Booker T. Washington

The circumstances that surround a man's life are not important. How that man responds to those circumstances IS IMPORTANT. His response is the ultimate determining factor between success and failure. ~ Booker T. Washington

rich people are coming to regard men and women who apply to them for help for worthy objects, not as beggars, but as agents for doing their work. ~ Booker T. Washington

We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness. ~ Booker T. Washington

With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a with youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one missed whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of brith and race. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign induced a number of persons to make an earnest effort to get me to enter political life, but I refused, still believing that I could find other service which would prove of more permanent value to my race. Even then I had a strong feeling that what our people most needed was to get a foundation in education, industry, and property, and for this I felt that they could better afford to strive than for political preferment. As for my individual self, it appeared to me to be reasonably certain that I could succeed in political life, but I had a feeling that it would be a rather selfish kind of success --- individual success at the cost of failing to do my duty in assisting in laying a foundation for the masses ~ Booker T. Washington

I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him. ~ Booker T. Washington

The longer I live and the more I study the question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much the problem of what you will do with Negro, as what the Negro will do with you and your 'civilization'. ~ Booker T. Washington

It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges. ~ Booker T. Washington

It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself. ~ Booker T. Washington

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. ~ Booker T. Washington

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come ~ Booker T. Washington

Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon. ~ Booker T. Washington

In all my teaching I have watched carefully the influence of the tooth-brush, and I am convinced that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more far-reaching. ~ Booker T. Washington

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. ~ Booker T. Washington

We must not only become reliable, progressive, skillful and intelligent, but we must keep the idea constantly before our youths that all forms of labor, whether with the hand or head, are honorable. ~ Booker T. Washington

Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. ~ John Legend

Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it. ~ Booker T. Washington

Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth. ~ Booker T. Washington

The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least. ~ Booker T. Washington

Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood. ~ Booker T. Washington

A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else. ~ Booker T. Washington

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