Booker T. Washington Quotes

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.

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.

The world cares little about what a man knows;it cares more about what a man is able to do.

Success always leaves footprints.

I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.

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.

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.

Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles one overcomes while trying to succeed

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

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

In order to be successful in any undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.

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.

Character is power.