Booker T. Washington

Character is power.

— Booker T. Washington

Success always leaves footprints.

— Booker T. Washington

“Assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong.”

— Booker T. Washington

An inch of progress is worth a yard of complaint.

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

In proportion as one renders service he becomes great.

— Booker T. Washington

Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances.

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

“The world cares little about what a man knows;it cares more about what a man is able to do.”

— 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…

— Booker T. Washington

Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

— Booker T. Washington

Start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.

— Booker T. Washington

A life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful…

— 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 all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.

— Booker T. Washington

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

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— Booker T. Washington

From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This…

— Booker T. Washington

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

— 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…

— Booker T. Washington

“From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great man cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a…

— Booker T. Washington

“the long and bitter political struggle in which he had engaged against slavery had not prepared Mr. Douglass to take up the…

— Booker T. Washington

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is…

— Booker T. Washington

Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people…

— 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…

— Booker T. Washington

By habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming up. We are crawling up,…

— Booker T. Washington

“The first time that I went to Tuskegee I was asked to make an address to the school on Sunday evening. I…

— Booker T. Washington

“I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what…

— Booker T. Washington

“The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one…

— Booker T. Washington

“it takes no more time to be polite to every one than it does to be rude.”

— Booker T. Washington

Each one should remember there is a chance for him.

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

“I will permit no man to narrow & degrade my sould by making me hate him.”

— Booker T. Washington