Quotes from Booker T. Washington

I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

We should welcome all men of every shade of religious opinion, as among the best means of checking the arrogance and intolerance which are the almost inevitable concomitants of general conformity. Liberty always flourishes best amid the clash and competition of rival religious creeds.

think I began learning that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. This lesson I have tried to carry with me ever since.

It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

looking over the budgets of a number of the small landowners, whose position is much better than that of the average farm labourer, I found that as much as $5 was spent for wine, while the item for meat was only $2 per year. There are thousands of people in Sicily, I learned, who almost never taste meat. The studies which have been made of the subject indicate that the whole population is underfed.

The Negro is not the man farthest down. The condition of the coloured farmer in the most backward parts of the Southern States in America, 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.

I had the feeling that in a large measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room.

The more I consider the subject, the more strongly I am convinced that the most harmful effect of the practice to which the people in certain sections of the South have felt themselves compelled to resort, in order to get rid of the force of the Negroes' ballot, is not wholly in the wrong done to the Negro, but in the permanent injury to the morals of the white man.

The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man the injury is permanent.

have further sought to have them feel that I am at the institution as their friend and adviser, and not as their overseer

Do not be satisfied with second-hand or third-hand things in life. Do not be satisfied until you have put yourselves into that atmosphere where you can seize and hold on to the very highest and most beautiful things that can be got out of life.

The effect of this movement, or revolution, as I have called it, is not to "tear down and level up" in order to bring about an artificial equality, but to give every individual a chance "to make good," to determine for himself his place and position in the community by the character and quality of the service he is able to perform.

It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

they are glad that we started as we did, and built ourselves up year by year, by a slow and natural process of growth.

He aprendido que el exito, no se mide tanto por la posicion que uno ha alcanzado en la vida, como por los obstaculos, que se han tenido que superar en el esfuerzo por el triunfo.

The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live without manual labour.

great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

This institution does not exist for your education alone; it does not exist for your comfort and happiness altogether, although those things are important, and we keep them in mind; it exists that we may give you intelligence, skill of hand, and strength of mind and heart; and we help you in these ways that you, in turn, may help others.

Success isn't measured by the position you reach in life; it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.

Indeed it was no longer strange that, with all the vast resources which Russia possesses, the masses of the people have made so little progress when I considered how large a portion of the population had no other task than that of holding the people down, hindering rather than inspiring and directing the efforts of the masses to rise.

The white man who begins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole Nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South.

To young, inexperienced minds there seems to be a kind of fatal charm about the vague, the distant, and the mysterious.

the surest way to success in education, and in any other line for that matter, is to stick close to the common and familiar things — things that concern the greater part of the people the greater part of the time.

in those first years—and are reminded now—that people would excuse us for our poverty, for our lack of comforts and conveniences, but that they would not excuse us for dirt.