black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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

Escape Life People Strong Touch Weakness Yourself
A 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. WASHINGTON

Help Humanity Life Worth
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

Growth Law Man Stop
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

Learning Life Prosperity Way Yourself
Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Common Excellence Way
Start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Enough Start Yourself
Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Hold Hurt Oneself Person
I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Hate Man Myself Permit
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
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
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
No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Contribution Degree Market Race
The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Care Count Man Woman World
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
Success always leaves footprints.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Leaving Mark One Liner Success
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Essential Progress Purity Separate
An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Complain Value Worth
Great men cultivate love, only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Cherish Cultivation Greatness Hate Love Spirit
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

Carry Connection Race Superior Worth
Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Beginning Dignity Glorify Labor Life
Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Alone Character Economy Freedom Intelligence Man Politics Skills
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
Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Art Care Live Love Yourself
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

Civilization Live Problem Question Study
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
Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Grief Opportunity Ourselves Shadow
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Himself Hold Man Stay

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Booker T. Washington Quotes