Top 100 Booker T Quotes
#1. Before Booker T. Washington, we have small business owners but we do not have a philosopher of black entrepreneurship, and that's what Washington was.
Ed Smith
#3. Small Faces were really a soul band as far as we were concerned. That's what we listened to; that's what we played, you know? We were pretty much based on Booker T. and the M.G.'s.
Ian McLagan
#4. Today we ought to be able to see first that Booker T. Washington faced a situation in which he was seeking desperately for a way out, and he could see no way out except capitulation.
C.L.R. James
#5. Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
John Legend
#6. Du Bois marked a great stage in the history of Negro struggles when he said that Negroes could no longer accept the subordination which Booker T. Washington had preached.
C.L.R. James
#7. If you think your lot has been hard, read 'Up From Slavery' by Booker T. Washington, and you may see how fortunate you have been.
Napoleon Hill
#8. Booker T. Washington, Buddha, John Dewey, Leo Buscaglia, Moses and Jesus.
Jack Canfield
#10. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#11. Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
Booker T. Washington
#13. The longer I live and the more I study the question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much the problem of what you will do with Negro, as what the Negro will do with you and your 'civilization'.
Booker T. Washington
#14. [On being a judge for the 1986 Booker Prize:] I got to the point where I couldn't read a laundry list without considering it for the Booker Prize.
Bernice Rubens
#15. There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Booker T. Washington
#16. When I go about my own politics, I meet Tea Party supporters who I can work with in Congress, that I find common ground with. I find Tea Party supporters who won't let me get a sentence out without judging me. To say that there is a 'Tea Party supporter' is a gross generality.
Cory Booker
#17. Don't let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something.
Cory Booker
#18. Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this ...
Booker T. Washington
#19. Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.
Booker T. Washington
#20. You cannot find what you do not seek. You cannot grasp when you do not reach. Your dreams won't come up to your front door. You have got to take a leap if you want to soar.
Cory Booker
#21. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#22. Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.
Booker T. Washington
#24. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
Booker T. Washington
#25. 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
#26. The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.
Booker T. Washington
#27. 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
#28. 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
#29. Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come
Booker T. Washington
#31. I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice.
Booker T. Washington
#32. The mayoral mentality is incredibly valuable. I don't want to lose that.
Cory Booker
#33. Elections have consequences. So many people want to complain, but they don't want to vote. We can talk about Hillary Clinton. We can celebrate her; we can support her, but if we don't come out and vote for her, for shame.
Cory Booker
#34. The great human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal.
Booker T. Washington
#35. There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.
Booker T. Washington
#36. Food is at the core of our lives in ways we don't always think about - how it affects our environment, how it affects our health and well-being, how it affects the expense of society, the expense of government.
Cory Booker
#37. In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.
Booker T. Washington
#38. You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation.
Cory Booker
#40. At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.
Booker T. Washington
#41. I don't think I ever wanted to be a journalist - I was more interested in what comes from being a journalist.
Benjamin Booker
#43. Education is not what a person is able to hold in his head, so much as it is what a person is able to find.I
Booker T. Washington
#44. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
Booker T. Washington
#45. You don't have to be one of those people that accepts things as they are. Every day, take responsibility for changing them right where you are.
Cory Booker
#46. 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
#47. He (Vince Russo) is the only booker I've seen who doesn't get people over, he gets them under.
Jim Cornette
#49. We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.
Booker T. Washington
#50. Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker ... there is no escape ... people drag others or lift others up.
Booker T. Washington
#51. One of the highest and surest signs of civilization is that a people have learned to obey the commands of those who are placed over them.
Booker T. Washington
#53. I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.
Booker T. Washington
#54. So many great movements didn't succeed the first time, but people kept trying and trying and trying.
Cory Booker
#55. The circumstances that surround a man's life are not important. How that man responds to those circumstances IS IMPORTANT. His response is the ultimate determining factor between success and failure.
Booker T. Washington
#56. Are there any monuments built to demagogues? I just don't think so.
Cory Booker
#57. 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 ...
Booker T. Washington
#58. When American citizens pull together, there is little we can't accomplish.
Cory Booker
#59. 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
#61. When people jump on your mistakes, don't hide from them; let people know that you're human, too.
Cory Booker
#62. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#63. I don't want to be a race-transcending leader. I want to be deeply understood as a man, as African- American, as a Christian, all that I am.
Cory Booker
#64. Too often the educational value of doing well what is done, however little, is overlooked. One thing well done prepares the mind to do the next thing better. Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problem thoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered.
Booker T. Washington
#65. 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
#66. 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
#67. Education is not a thing apart from life - not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct teaching how to live and how to work.
Booker T. Washington
#68. I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking. I do not believe that one should speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels convinced that he has a message to deliver.
Booker T. Washington
#69. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#70. 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
#71. I'm sure I wouldn't have been asked to judge the Man Booker if it weren't for 'Downton.'
Dan Stevens
#72. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#73. In all my teaching I have watched carefully the influence of the tooth-brush, and I am convinced that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more far-reaching.
Booker T. Washington
#74. I never liked the atmosphere of Washington . I early saw that it was impossible to build up a race of which the leaders were spending most of their time, thought and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in.
Booker T. Washington
#76. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to study men and things!
Booker T. Washington
#77. What most Americans don't realize is a lot of the challenges we're struggling with today are the result of conscious housing policies.
Cory Booker
#78. 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
#79. The richness of America is that we are diverse. We're not Sweden. We're not Norway. We are a great American experiment. And as soon as we start trying to forget race or turn our back on race, number one, we don't confront the real racial realities that still persist.
Cory Booker
#81. Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles one overcomes while trying to succeed
Booker T. Washington
#82. There was a small point in my life in law school, right before I moved to Newark, when I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I felt so lost.
Cory Booker
#83. You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.
Booker T. Washington
#84. Never get to the point where you will be ashamed to ask anybody for information. The ignorant man will always be ignorant if he fears that by asking another for information he will display ignorance. Better once display your ignorance of a certain subject than always know nothing of it.
Booker T. Washington
#85. Listen, don't get my Jersey pride going. We are the most densely-populated state in America 'cause some many people who know the secret want to live there.
Cory Booker
#86. If you truly want to measure the success of a man, you do not measure it by a position he has achieved, but by the obstacles he has overcome.
Booker T. Washington
#87. Oh, I've become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn't this great race.
Ian McEwan
#88. Those who have accomplished the greatest results are those ... who never grow excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed, patient and polite.
Booker T. Washington
#90. Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than to be in bad company
Booker T. Washington
#91. I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn't defeat the British, it didn't get us to the moon, build our nation's highways, or map the human genome. We did that together. This is the high call of patriotism.
Cory Booker
#92. Being vegan for me is a cleaner way of not participating in practices that don't align with my values.
Cory Booker
#94. You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.
Booker T. Washington
#95. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#97. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high-water mark of pure and useful living.
Booker T. Washington
#98. I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.
Booker T. Washington
#99. Great men cultivate love and only little men cherish a spirit of hatred; assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
Booker T. Washington
#100. 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
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
