Booker T Quotes & Sayings

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. — 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

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 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

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

Food is at the core of our lives in ways we don't always think about - how it affects our environment, how it affects our health and well-being, how it affects the expense of society, the expense of government. — Cory Booker

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

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

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

A life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful to humanity. — Booker T. Washington

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

You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him. — 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

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

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 ... — Booker T. Washington

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

Courage has you say in a defiant spirit you can take everything from me, you could cut me deep, you could render me in shame but you will never ever stop me from loving those who mock me, from loving those that hate me, from loving those who don't forgive me, from loving the cynics, from loving the darkness so much that I myself through my small acts of consistent unyielding love may bring on the light. — Cory Booker

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else. — Booker T. Washington

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

Hakeem: A wise man once said that suffering produces perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Andre: Since when did spouting masochism make one wise? And the sacraments of a bitter existence? Who deemed that a vaunted prize? Nihilistic philosophy only births more pain. It's fruitless to espouse folly, repackage it as wisdom, and spew it in a wise man's name. — Booker T. Mattison

We must reinforce argument with results. — 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 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

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

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

Being vegan for me is a cleaner way of not participating in practices that don't align with my values. — Cory Booker

Don't let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something. — Cory Booker

When people jump on your mistakes, don't hide from them; let people know that you're human, too. — Cory Booker

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

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

We are redeemed one man at a time. There is no family pass ticket or park hopping pass to life. One ticket - one at a time. Man doesn't vanquish hatred or bigotry. The target keeps moving. From the blacks to the Irish; atheists to Christians. But as always there are a few leaders: Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Booker T Washington, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They know that the march toward freedom never ends, man must be ever vigilant and pray less with his lips and more with his legs. — Glenn Beck

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

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

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

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

When I go about my own politics, I meet Tea Party supporters who I can work with in Congress, that I find common ground with. I find Tea Party supporters who won't let me get a sentence out without judging me. To say that there is a 'Tea Party supporter' is a gross generality. — Cory Booker

What most Americans don't realize is a lot of the challenges we're struggling with today are the result of conscious housing policies. — Cory Booker

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

Unless you got real short and real fat, you ain't no Booker T! — Stone Cold Steve Austin

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

Patriotism is love of country. But you can't love your country without loving your countrymen and countrywomen. We don't always have to agree, but we must empower each other, we must find the common ground, we must build bridges across our differences to pursue the common good. — Cory Booker

Patriotism is a love of country. If you love your country, you should love your countrymen and women. It doesn't mean you always agree with them or even like them. It is understanding that we have interwoven destiny. — Cory Booker

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

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

He (Vince Russo) is the only booker I've seen who doesn't get people over, he gets them under. — Jim Cornette

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

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

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

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. — Booker T. Washington

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

The richness of America is that we are diverse. We're not Sweden. We're not Norway. We are a great American experiment. And as soon as we start trying to forget race or turn our back on race, number one, we don't confront the real racial realities that still persist. — Cory Booker

The opening line of her last column was: You know you really don't fit in with the other housewives you meet when the only way you can contribute to a discussion about babies is by saying, "Yes, that's what my mother used to do." It went on to talk about how a woman could climb Everest, teach schoolchildren in Cambodia and win the Booker Prize but some people would still think she had good news only when she produced progeny. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

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

Don't speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don't tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all God's children. Don't preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give. — Cory Booker

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

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

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'd done all my research and seen that Booker and Gadson had worked with giant folks and little peanuts, too. That just showed me that they're musicians. They're not just interested in doing the big ones, they're interested in doing stuff that - pardon the expression - gives them a boner. I'm like that, too. I don't want to just do easy stuff. I want to keep myself freaked out all the time. Hence the title of the record, I Like To Keep Myself in Pain. — Kelly Hogan

People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles one overcomes while trying to succeed — 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

I don't know what the strategy will be in Washington. The reality is, is, I have got to go down there, as my mentor, as people like Bill Bradley have told me to do, get to know your colleagues on both sides of the aisle, recognize that they, too, beat with the same heart and the same type of blood. — Cory Booker

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

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

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

As a guy that had been told to drop out many times as I was coming up, I don't think you should tell any candidate about what they should do and what decisions they should make. — Cory Booker

Each one should remember there is a chance for him. — Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington, Buddha, John Dewey, Leo Buscaglia, Moses and Jesus. — Jack Canfield

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

Elections have consequences. So many people want to complain, but they don't want to vote. We can talk about Hillary Clinton. We can celebrate her; we can support her, but if we don't come out and vote for her, for shame. — Cory Booker

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

Athletes are still exploited. If they blow out their knee, if they somehow don't meet the mandates of a coach, they lose their scholarship. They don't get their degree. — Cory Booker

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

Before Booker T. Washington, we have small business owners but we do not have a philosopher of black entrepreneurship, and that's what Washington was. — Ed Smith

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

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

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

You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation. — Cory Booker

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

As you put your sights on your goals - no matter how great and compelling they are - as you look into the distance, don't forget what is right in front of you today. No matter how great your dreams, no matter how great your destiny, the biggest thing you can do in any day is a small act of kindness. — Cory Booker

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 individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race. — Booker T. Washington