Booker T. Washington Quotes

77 Sourced Quotes

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

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
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 overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reached the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white 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 misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.

Booker T. Washington
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

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

Booker T. Washington
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
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
It is not in the highest degree helpful to a race to be continually praised, and thus have its weaknesses overlooked; neither is it the most helpful thing to have its faults alone continually dwelt upon. What is needed is downright, straightforward honesty in both directions.

Booker T. Washington
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.

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
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.

Booker T. Washington
No race or people ever got upon its feet without severe and constant struggle, often in the face of the greatest discouragement.

Booker T. Washington
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.

Booker T. Washington
Patiently, quietly, doggedly, persistently, through summer and winter, sunshine and shadow, by self-sacrifice, by foresight, by honesty and industry, we must reinforce argument with results.

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
We are led into saying that there is no difference between us and other people. We must admit that there is a difference produced by the unequal opportunities. To argue otherwise is to discredit the effects of slavery.

Booker T. Washington
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
I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

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

Booker T. Washington
No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward.

Booker T. Washington
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
An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

Booker T. Washington
We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.

Booker T. Washington
I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate 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
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
In all things that are purely social we [black and white] can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

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
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