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You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

Booker T. Washington

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 Problem Study
A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Helping Lifts Way
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. WASHINGTON

Hands Ideas Intelligent
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
I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Beginning Ideas Oneself Patience Success
Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Bottom Common Labor
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
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
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
Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Law Progress Stars
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
Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

College Education Errors Man Religion Woman
Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Countries People Some Jobs Wants
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

Food Men Thinking
You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Inspirational Motivational Success
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.

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You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

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