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.Collection: Character
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.Collection: Heart
We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way. Let down your buckets where you are.Collection: Way
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.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Ideas
The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.Collection: Uplifting
If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.Collection: Mothers Day
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.Collection: School
I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.Collection: Success
Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.Collection: Race
It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.Collection: Mean
Do not do that which others can do as well.Collection: Wells
No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.Collection: Race
In proportion as one renders service he becomes great.Collection: Helping Others
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.Collection: Strong
A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else.Collection: Way
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.Collection: Believe
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say 'Cast down your bucket where you are.'Collection: Men
I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.Collection: Positive
In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.Collection: Hands
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.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Life
In my contact with people, I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls – with the great outside world.Collection: Book
You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.Collection: Men
A life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful to humanity.Collection: Inspirational Life
Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Education
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'.Collection: Civilization
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.Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Two
Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances.Collection: Opportunity
My whole life has largely been one of surprises.Collection: Surprise
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.Collection: Business
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.Collection: Men
I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I resolved then that I would permit no man, no matter what his color, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.Collection: Hate
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.Collection: Success
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.Collection: Struggle
We must not only become reliable, progressive, skillful and intelligent, but we must keep the idea constantly before our youths that all forms of labor, whether with the hand or head, are honorable.Collection: Intelligent
You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.Collection: School
You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals.Collection: Inspirational
In order to be successful in any undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.Collection: Successful
In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.Collection: Country
There is no escape - man drags man down, or man lifts man up.Collection: Men
...those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms [of the rich] do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much sufering would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises.Collection: People
No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.Collection: Food
Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Done