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.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

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

— 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

“Success always leaves footprints.”

— Booker T. Washington

“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

“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

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

“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

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

— 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

“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

“If you can't read, it's going to be hard to realize dreams.”

— Booker T. Washington

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

— Booker T. Washington

“We must reinforce argument with results.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— 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

“It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.”

— 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

“I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any 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

“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

“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

“My experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than his own.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.

— 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

“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

“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

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

— 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

“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

“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 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

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

“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

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

— 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

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

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

“Lay hold of something that will help you, and then use it to help somebody else.”

— 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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 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

“Each one should remember there is a chance for him.”

— Booker T. Washington

“We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way. Let down your buckets where you are.”

— Booker T. Washington