booker t. washington::african american quotes

7/26/2019 Booker T. Washington::African American Quotes

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Authors » Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them

unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabularyBooker T. Washington

We must reinforce argument with results.


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


Let us keep before us the fact that, almost without exception, every race or nation that has ever got upon its feethas done so through struggle and trial and persecution; and that out of this very resistance to wrong, out of thestruggle against odds, they have gained strength, self-confidence, and experience which they could not havegained in any other way.


Too often the educational value of doing well what is done, however little, is overlooked. One thing well doneprepares the mind to do the next thing better. Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problemthoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered.


We should not permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunity.


You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.


No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race hewill be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.


I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding raceprejudice, for nothing else makes one so blind and narrow.


We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers.


There is no escape - man drags man down, or man lifts man up.


oker T. Washington::African American Quotes http://www.africanamericanquotes.org/booker-t.-washingto

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The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate.


Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trusthim.


Cast down your bucket where you are.


He who lives outside the law is a slave. The free man is the man who lives within the law, whether that law bethe physical or the divine.


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


At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our raceeconomic independence.


There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.


A life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful to humanity.


Character is power.


You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, uprightcharacter, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.


No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in whichhe lives, is left long without proper reward.


Each one should remember there is a chance for him.


The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do thatcounts.



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I have never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannotsucceed. I have always had high regard for the man who could tell me how to succeed.


It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to rebel, more courage not to strike back than to retaliate,more courage to be silent than to speak.


I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.


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


I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.


Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.


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


No one can degrade us except ourselves.


I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him. Booker T. Washington

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


I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.


Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.


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


No one can degrade us except ourselves.



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


Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every daythings nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.


Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.


I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mindto do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living.


Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almostwithout exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, byresolving that when he met discouragement he would not give up.


Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.


Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Booker T. Washington, Democracy and Education

The man who has learned to do something better than anyone else, has learned to do a common thing in anuncommon manner, is the man who has a power and influence that no adverse circumstances can take fromhim.

Booker T. Washington, The Case of the Negro


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