Explore Quotes by Booker T. Washington

Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.

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

Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker... there is no escape... people drag others or lift others up.

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.

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

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.

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

Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragement he would not give up.

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.

There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.

If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

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.

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.

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.)

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