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No one can degrade us except ourselves.

Booker T. Washington

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Poem Prosperity Race Writing
Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problem thoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Mastered Problem Score Understand
An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Abstraction Application Practical
The wisest among my race understand that agitations of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Progress Race Struggle
A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Helping Lifts Way
Success always leaves footprints.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Leaving Mark One Liner Success
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 Law
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
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
No 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. WASHINGTON

Intellectual Live Man Material Place Reward
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
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Himself Hold Man Stay
If you can’t read, it’s going to be hard to realize dreams.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Dreams Hard Reading Realization
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
Even where he has the least education and the least encouragement, is incomparably better than the condition and opportunities of the agricultural population in Sicily.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Agricultural Condition Incomparably Population Sicily
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
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

Long Running World
Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Capture Determination Patience Strength Success
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
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
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Himself Hold Man
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

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

Leadership Life Power
Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Exception Hard Work Result Worth
The man who has learned to do something better than anyone else, has learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner, is the man who has a power and influence that no adverse circumstances can take from him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Determination Men Success
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
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

No one can degrade us except ourselves.

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No one can degrade us except ourselves.

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