1
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
Booker T. Washingtonverified·Address at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition, in Up from Slavery·September 18, 1895
The complete collection
The quote database
Every quote we hold, 1549 of them from 213 people across 387 works. Filter it, sort it, and follow any citation back to the source.
1529 checked at source
Filter the collection
Category
Feeling
Attribution
8 quotes by Booker T. Washington · clear filters
2
Cast down your bucket where you are.
3
I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
Attribution contested
Circulated everywhere as if you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else, which appears in none of Washington's books, addresses or letters. This is the sentence in Up from Slavery it compresses. The paraphrase is not unfair, but it is not a quotation, and it drops the second half -- the claim that oppressing the unfortunate makes the oppressor weak -- which is the part he was actually arguing.
4
At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.
5
Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.
6
Your life will be wasted if you go away from here and have not learned that the greatest lesson of all is the lesson of brotherly love, of usefulness and of charity.
7
If we would be great, and good, and useful, we must pay the price. And remember that when we get down to the fundamental principles of truth, nature draws no colour line.
8
Our ability to make the world better depends entirely upon our ability to use every opportunity to make ourselves better.