Booker T. Washington

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

The wisest among my race understand that agitations of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.

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

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

In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

We must reinforce argument with results.

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

Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves. It's wonderful when the people believe in their leader. It's more wonderful when the leader believes in their people! You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.

No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.

A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else.

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

A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.

Never let your work drive you. Master it and keep it in complete control.

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

In proportion as one renders service he becomes great.

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I resolved then that I would permit no man, no matter what his color, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them. (also cited as: I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.)

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come

Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

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