Quotes from Booker T. Washington

It is not possible for one man to hold another man down in the ditch without staying down there with him.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.

After having been for a while at Hampton, I found myself in difficulty because I did not have books and clothing. Usually, however, I got around the trouble about books by borrowing from those who were more fortunate than myself.

Perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an understanding of the use and value of the Bible.

Before this I had never cared a great deal about it, but now I learned to love to read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but on account of it as literature.

I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and inconveniences... It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one's self.

There are some things that one individual can do for another, and there are some things that one race can do for another. But, on the whole, every individual and every race must work out its own salvation.

I felt from the first that mere book education was not all that the young people of that town needed. I began my work at eight o'clock in the morning, and, as a rule, it did not end until ten o'clock at night. In addition to the usual routine of teaching, I taught the pupils to comb their hair, and to keep their hands and faces clean, as well as their clothing. I gave special attention to teaching them the proper use of the tooth-brush and the bath.

I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

looking over the budgets of a number of the small landowners, whose position is much better than that of the average farm labourer, I found that as much as $5 was spent for wine, while the item for meat was only $2 per year. There are thousands of people in Sicily, I learned, who almost never taste meat. The studies which have been made of the subject indicate that the whole population is underfed.

The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man the injury is permanent.