The quotations of

Booker T. Washington

African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

1856–1915

14 quotes, most often on Race, Success and Work.

I have learnt that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter II: Boyhood Days
- Success
I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them.
- Morality
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.
- Motivation & Goals
No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward.
Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XVI: Europe
- Success
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them
- Responsibility
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
An Address on Abraham Lincoln before the Republican Club of New York City (12 February 1909)
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
- Charity
Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
“Democracy and Education”, address at the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, New York (30 September 1896)
Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.
Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XII: Raising Money
- Work
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.
The Atlanta Exposition Address (1895)
- Race
- Work
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.
An Address on Abraham Lincoln before the Republican Club of New York City (12 February 1909)
- Race
- Slavery
Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
“The Problems of the Colored Race in the South,” lecture, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 December 1895)
- Laws
- Voting
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.
The Atlanta Exposition Address (1895)
- Race

Often credited to Booker T. Washington

Quotes often credited to Booker T. Washington that were said or written by someone else.

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.
JNJames Nicollborn 1961Often credited to Booker T. Washington
- Talking

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