Top 150 Booker T. Washington Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “There is no escape – man drags man down, or man lifts man up.”

— Booker T. Washington

52. “In all things social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

— Booker T. Washington

53. “If you can’t read, it’s going to be hard to realize dreams.”

— Booker T. Washington

54. “Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

56. “Do not do that which others can do as well.”

— Booker T. Washington

57. “If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christ like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian.”

— Booker T. Washington

58. “Great men cultivate love and only little men cherish a spirit of hatred; assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.”

— Booker T. Washington

59. “The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts.”

— Booker T. Washington

60. “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

61. “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.”

— Booker T. Washington

62. “Think about it: we went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands...”

— Booker T. Washington

63. “Ignorance is more costly to any State than education.”

— Booker T. Washington

64. “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.”

— Booker T. Washington

65. “It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

67. “In order to be successful in any undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.”

— Booker T. Washington

68. “I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking. I do not believe that one should speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels convinced that he has a message to deliver.”

— Booker T. Washington

69. “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.”

— Booker T. Washington

70. “I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice.”

— Booker T. Washington

71. “Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded.”

— Booker T. Washington

72. “Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this...”

— Booker T. Washington

73. “Among a large class there seemed to be a dependence upon the Government for every conceivable thing. The members of this class had little ambition to create a position for themselves, but wanted the Federal officials to create one for them.”

— Booker T. Washington

74. “No man whose vision is bounded by colour can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world. In meeting men, in many places, I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice.”

— Booker T. Washington

75. “Experience has taught me, in fact, that no man should be pitied because, every day in his life, he faces a hard, stubborn problem, but rather that it is the man who has no problem to solve, no hardships to face, who is to be pitied.”

— Booker T. Washington

76. “I am learning more and more each year that all worry simply consumes, and to no purpose, just so much physical and mental strength that might otherwise be given to effective work.”

— Booker T. Washington

77. “I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.”

— Booker T. Washington

78. “In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause.”

— Booker T. Washington

79. “I have gotten a large part of my education from actual contact with things, rather than through the medium of books. I like to touch things and handle them; I like to watch plants grow and observe the behaviour of animals.”

— Booker T. Washington

80. “During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a child looks to its mother.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

82. “I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time.”

— Booker T. Washington

83. “Never get to the point where you will be ashamed to ask anybody for information. The ignorant man will always be ignorant if he fears that by asking another for information he will display ignorance. Better once display your ignorance of a certain subject than always know nothing of it.”

— Booker T. Washington

84. “Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.”

— Booker T. Washington

85. “I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.”

— Booker T. Washington

86. “Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.”

— Booker T. Washington

87. “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.”

— Booker T. Washington

88. “To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’”

— Booker T. Washington

89. “In my contact with people, I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls – with the great outside world.”

— Booker T. Washington

90. “There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

92. “Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles one overcomes while trying to succeed.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

94. “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.”

— Booker T. Washington

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

— Booker T. Washington

96. “You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.”

— Booker T. Washington

97. “Lay hold of something that will help you, and then use it to help somebody else.”

— Booker T. Washington

98. “It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.”

— Booker T. Washington

99. “Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.”

— Booker T. Washington

100. “Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.”

— Booker T. Washington