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 t… - Booker T. Washington

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

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

I learned what education was expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labor. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labor, but learned to love labor, not alone for its financial value, but for labor’s own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.