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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONWe 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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONNo race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONOf 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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONAn ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONA life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful to humanity.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONLeaders have devoted themselves to politics, little knowing, it seems that political independence disappears without economic independence that economic independence is the foundation of political independence.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONStart where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONSuccess in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONI think I have learned that the best way to lift one’s self up is to help someone else.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONThe 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. WASHINGTONNo 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. WASHINGTONLay hold of something that will help you, and then use it to help somebody else.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONThe 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. WASHINGTONPolitical activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONCharacter, not circumstances, makes the man.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTONThe older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON