Booker T. Washington Quotes - Page 5

Had (I) been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my colour to do that for me which I should do for myself. Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them. (also cited as: I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.)

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.

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

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.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice, for nothing else makes one so blind and narrow.

Each one should remember there is a chance for him.

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.

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

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.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.

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.

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

If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

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.

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.

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

Do not do that which others can do as well.

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