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It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.

Booker T. Washington

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
We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Beat Borrow Language Occasion Vocabulary Word
A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Empowerment Lift Race
Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Help Himself Place Responsibility Trust Yourself
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Habit Heart Hold Narrow Unfortunate
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Cherish Cultivation Greatness Love Strong Weakness
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
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Effort Greatness Injury Life Race Youth
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
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Himself Hold Man Stay
Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Common Excellence Way
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
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
I think I have learned that the best way to lift one’s self up is to help someone else.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Help Learning Lift Myself Thinking Way
Character is power.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Character One Liner Power
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
The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

End Himself Race Regard Willing World
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Achievement Himself Man Measurement Position Success True
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Freedom Ideas Myself Return Slave
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.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Death Experience Live Myself Opportunity World Worth
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
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
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
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Oneself Strength Way
The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Architect Build Discussion Home Sight Strong
Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Capture Determination Patience Strength Success
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

It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.

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It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.

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