Top 100 Quotes About Booker T Washington
#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
#2. 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
#3. 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
#4. 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
#5. 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
#6. Booker T. Washington, Buddha, John Dewey, Leo Buscaglia, Moses and Jesus.
Jack Canfield
#8. 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
#9. 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
#11. 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
#12. There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Booker T. Washington
#13. 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
#14. Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.
Booker T. Washington
#15. 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
#16. 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
#18. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
Booker T. Washington
#19. 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
#20. 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
#21. 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
#22. 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
#23. Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come
Booker T. Washington
#25. 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
#26. The great human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal.
Booker T. Washington
#27. There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.
Booker T. Washington
#28. 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
#30. 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
#32. 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
#33. 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
#34. 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
#36. We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.
Booker T. Washington
#37. 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
#38. 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
#40. 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
#41. 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
#42. 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
#43. 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
#45. 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
#46. 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
#47. 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
#48. 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
#49. 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
#50. 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
#51. 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
#52. 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
#53. 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
#54. 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
#55. 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
#57. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to study men and things!
Booker T. Washington
#58. 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
#60. 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
#61. You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.
Booker T. Washington
#62. 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
#63. 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
#64. 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
#66. Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than to be in bad company
Booker T. Washington
#68. 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
#69. 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
#71. 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
#72. I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.
Booker T. Washington
#73. 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
#74. 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
#75. No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.
Booker T. Washington
#76. The thing that impressed itself most on me in Holland was the thoroughness of the agriculture and the excellence of the Holstein cattle. I
Booker T. Washington
#77. 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.
Booker T. Washington
#78. Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.
Booker T. Washington
#81. I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim ""Do not get others to do what you can do yourself."" My motto on the other hand is; ""Do not do that which others can do as well.
Booker T. Washington
#82. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
Booker T. Washington
#83. My experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than his own.
Booker T. Washington
#85. Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.
Booker T. Washington
#86. You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals.
Booker T. Washington
#88. 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
#89. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.
Booker T. Washington
#90. The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.
Booker T. Washington
#91. We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way. Let down your buckets where you are.
Booker T. Washington
#92. I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.
Booker T. Washington
#93. There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
Booker T. Washington
#99. There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
Booker T. Washington
#100. No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
Booker T. Washington
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
