Quotes from Booker T. Washington

Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come

You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals.

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.

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.

We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way. Let down your buckets where you are.

My whole life has largely been one of surprises.

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

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

The thing to do when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.

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.

The time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to.

If you can't read, it's going to be hard to realize dreams.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

Success is not measured by the heights one attains, but by the obstacles one overcomes in its attainment.

Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

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.

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

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

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

Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.