It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself. - Booker T. Washington

Too often, it seems to me, in missionary and educational work among underdeveloped races, people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before, or is being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mould, regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be accomplished.

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.

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