Booker T. Washington Quotes & Sayings

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. — Booker T. Washington

Character, not circumstances, makes the man. — 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

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

Ignorance is more costly to any State than education. — 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

No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. — 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

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

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

I knew that, in a large degree, we were trying an experiment
that of testing whether or not it was possible for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large education institution. I knew that if we failed it wold injure the whole race. — Booker T. Washington

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 ... — 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

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

In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him. — 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

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

There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up. — Booker T. Washington

To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him. — Booker T. Washington

Character is power. — 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

By habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming up. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up-often through oppression, unjust discrimination and prejudice-but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and property, there is no power on earth than can permanently stay our progress. — Booker T. Washington

No one can degrade us except ourselves. — 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

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

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. — 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

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

I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high-water mark of pure and useful living. — Booker T. Washington

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

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

A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else. — 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

I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man. — 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

There is no escape - man drags man down, or man lifts man up. — 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

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

Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances. — 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

The world should not pass judgement upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is. — Booker T. Washington

The study of art that does not result in making the strong less willing to suppress the weak means little. — Booker T. Washington

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

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

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

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. — 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

I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking. I do not believe that one should speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels convinced that he has a message to deliver. — Booker T. Washington

In proportion as one renders service he becomes great. — 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

Lay hold of something that will help you, and then use it to help somebody else. — Booker T. Washington

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

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

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

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

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

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

My whole life has largely been one of surprises. — Booker T. Washington

One of the highest and surest signs of civilization is that a people have learned to obey the commands of those who are placed over them. — 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

The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live without manual labour. There was a further feeling that a knowledge, however little, of the Greek and Latin languages would make one a very superior human being, something bordering almost on the supernatural. — 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

Education is not a thing apart from life - not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct teaching how to live and how to work. — Booker T. Washington

I have referred to this unpleasant part of the history of the South simply for the purpose of calling attention to the great change that has taken place since the days of the "Ku Klux." To-day there are no such organizations in the South, and the fact that such ever existed is almost forgotten by both races. There are few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist. Chapter — Booker T. Washington

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

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

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

Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work. — 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

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

The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him. — Booker T. Washington

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

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. — 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 most miserable are those who do the — 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

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

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him. — Booker T. Washington

When one takes a broad survey of the country, he will find that the most useful and influential people in it are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better. — 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

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. — Booker T. Washington

The thing that impressed itself most on me in Holland was the thoroughness of the agriculture and the excellence of the Holstein cattle. I — 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

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

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

There are those among the white race and those among the black race who assert, with a good deal of earnestness, that there is no difference between the white man and the black man in this country. This sounds very pleasant and tickles the fancy; but, when the test of hard, cold logic is applied to it, it must be acknowledged that there is a difference, - not an inherent one, not a racial one, but a difference growing out of unequal opportunities in the past. — Booker T. Washington

From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery. — Booker T. Washington

Let us keep before us the fact that, almost without exception, every race or nation that has ever got upon its feet has done so through struggle and trial and persecution; and that out of this very resistance to wrong, out of the struggle against odds, they have gained strength, self-confidence, and experience which they could not have gained in any other way. — Booker T. Washington

The world cares little about what a man knows;it cares more about what a man is able to do. — 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

I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. — Booker T. Washington

Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker ... there is no escape ... people drag others or lift others up. — Booker T. Washington

On the morning of September 17, together with Mrs. Washington and my three children, I started for Atlanta. I felt a good deal as I suppose a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In passing through the town of Tuskegee I met a white farmer who lived some distance out in the country. In a jesting manner this man said: "Washington, you have spoken before the Northern white people, the Negroes in the South, and to us country white people in the South; but Atlanta, to-morrow, you will have before you the Northern whites, the Southern whites, and the Negroes all together. I am afraid that you have got yourself in a tight place." This farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his frank words did not add anything to my comfort. — 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

Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star. — 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