Booker T. Washington Quotes

African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor (1856-1915)

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American political leader, educator and author of African ancestry, most famous for his tenure as President of Tuskegee University (1880–1915).

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Birth Name: Booker Taliaferro Washington

Alternative Names: Booker Washington

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"On the morning of September 17, together with Mrs. Washington and my three children, I started for Atlanta. I felt a good deal as I suppose a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In passing through the town of Tuskegee I met a white farmer who lived some distance out in the country. In a jesting manner this man said: "Washington, you have spoken before the Northern white people, the Negroes in the South, and to us country white people in the South; but Atlanta, to-morrow, you will have before you the Northern whites, the Southern whites, and the Negroes all together. I am afraid that you have got yourself in a tight place." This farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his frank words did not add anything to my comfort."

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

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.

that my mother had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation of seeming to be that which she was not — of

I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind (surprises) if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life — that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living. I pity the man, black or white, who has never experienced the joy and satisfaction that come to one by reason of an effort to assist in making someone else more useful and more happy.

Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragements he would not give up. Make up your minds that you are going to overcome every discouragement, and that you are not going to let any discouragement overcome you.

The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.

I have often heard persons condemned for not giving away money, who, to my own knowledge, were giving away thousands of dollars every year so quietly that the world knew nothing about it.