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I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

Booker T. Washington

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
Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Compassionate Generosity Happiness
In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Country Disadvantage Law Men People
My whole life has largely been one of surprises.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Life Oneself Surprise
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
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
Remember that everyone’s life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Life Measurement Power Remember World
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Inspirational Life 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
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Men Race White
The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Civilization Fortunate Hands Help Race Test Willing
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
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

Character Men Skill
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
There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Defense Development Highest
Those who have accomplished the greatest results are those…who never grow excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed, patient and polite.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Calm Greatest Patient Possession Self

I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

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I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

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Popular Authors

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