Booker T. Washington, fully Booker Taliaferro Washington

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.

The longer I live the more I am convinced that the one thing worth living for and dying for is the privilege of making someone more happy and more useful. No person who ever does anything to lift their fellows ever makes a sacrifice.

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.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know that you trust them.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

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

I have learned that success is measured not so much by the position one has achieved in life as by the obstacles he has overcome.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

Character is power.

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

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

No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

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

It makes a great deal of difference in the life of a race, as it does in the life of an individual, whether the world expects much or little of that individual or of that race.

It is an easy matter, requiring little thought, generosity or statesmanship to push a weak man down when he is struggling to get up. Anyone can do that. Greatness, generosity, statesmanship are shown in stimulating, encouraging every individual in the body politic to make of himself the most useful, intelligent and patriotic citizen possible.

I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

I have learned 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.

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.

Character is the sum of all we struggle against.