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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

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

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

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

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.

Success always leaves footprints.