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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

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

Earth Influence Life Power Simplicity
Start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Enough Start Yourself
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

Courage Rebel Silence Suffering
Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Character Circumstance Man
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Civilization Man Race Religion Thinking White
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

Economic Education Independence Politics Race Religion
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Oneself Strength Way
Success always leaves footprints.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Leaving Mark One Liner Success
It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Deal Foundation Greatness Myself Start Thinking
There is no escape – man drags man down, or man lifts man up.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Escape Help Man
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

Believe Life Live Man Possible Purity
Never let your work drive you. Master it and keep it in complete control.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Complete Control Drive Master Work
Leaders 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. WASHINGTON

Devotion Foundation Independence Leadership Politics
The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Happiness Less Misery People
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

Exercise Important Preparation Privilege Right
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Himself Hold Man
A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Empowerment Lift Race
The 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

Education Greatness Growth Man Old Woman
Ignorance is more costly to any State than education.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Cost Education Ignorance Price State
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Black Ethnic History Myself Race Time
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

Circumstance Determination Factor Failure Important Life Man Success Surround
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

Affirmation Learning Myself Thinking
There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Development Exception High Intelligence Security
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

Best Different History Race Willing World
I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Hate Man Myself Permit
If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Attention Feeling Inheritance Life Mom Myself Worth
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

Best Decision World Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Booker T. Washington Quotes