Booker T. Washington

Bad as conditions might have seemed at first, when they saw that actual progress was being made, they would have taken a more hopeful view of the situation.

My whole life has largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life — that is, tries to make …

The English servant expects, as a rule, to be nothing but a servant, and so he perfects himself in the art to a degree that no class of servants in America has yet reached. In our country the servant expects to become, in a few years, a …

The home life of the English seems to me to be about as perfect as anything can be. Everything moves like clockwork.

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.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.

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.

Cast down your bucket where you are.

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

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me …

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.

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.

Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.

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.

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.

The unprecedented leap the Negro made when freed from the oppressing withes of bondage is more than deserving of a high place in history. It can never be chronicled. The world needs to know of what mettle these people are built.

We have cleared the forests, reclaimed the land, and are building cities, railroads, and great institutions.

In all things social as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

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 …

Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining …

The world cares very little what you or I know, but it does care a great deal about what you or I do.

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

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.