1856-1915, American Black Leader and Educator
Character is power.
Booker T. Washington – [Character]
Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
Booker T. Washington – [Character]
Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.
Booker T. Washington – [Excellence]
I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living.
Booker T. Washington – [Encouragement]
I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Booker T. Washington – [Hatred]
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
Booker T. Washington – [Service]
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.
Booker T. Washington – [Rewards]
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
Booker T. Washington – [Pride]
Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.
Booker T. Washington – [Things and Little Things]
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed.
Booker T. Washington – [Success]
The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts.
Booker T. Washington – [Ability]
There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Booker T. Washington – [Strength]
There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
Booker T. Washington – [Influence]
We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers.
Booker T. Washington – [Prejudice]
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 vocabulary.
Booker T. Washington – [Language]
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
Booker T. Washington – [Brotherhood]