Quotes from Booker T. Washington

Character, not circumstance, makes the person.

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

There is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.