Booker T. Washington Quotes - Page 3

No one can degrade us except ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The man who has learned to do something better than anyone else, has learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner, is the man who has a power and influence that no adverse circumstances can take from him.

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

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

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.

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.

We must reinforce argument with results.

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

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

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.

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.

The Negro is not the man farthest down. The condition of the coloured farmer in the most backward parts of the Southern States of America, even where he has the least education and the least encouragement, is incomparably better than the condition and opportunities of the agricultural population in Sicily.

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