Booker T. Washington

"Worry does not rob tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its joy."

"We should not think so much about what we have failed to do in the past as about what we may be able to do in the future."

"I would much prefer to be happy than to be right."

"Nature teaches us that tens of thousands of species of wild animals have learned to help each other live."

"The time when one's people or one's family expect one to do something, that is the time to do it."

"I shall always try to be a help and not a burden."

"The Negro race is progressing more slowly because we are not as much interested in matters that affect our welfare as we should be."

"In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."

"A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits."

"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 and efforts."

"The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly."

"Idleness, vice, and crime are the inevitable results of allowing people to remain ignorant."

"We should be as free as the air, and in every legal and constitutional manner aid each other in securing the highest positions of trust and usefulness."

"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."

"Brute force cannot retain a thing which it is not capable of appreciating."

"Progress means growth when individuals grow, it means decay when they stagnate."

"Let us be as careful of the Indian as we would of any baby."

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

"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 South has never yet been asked to do its fair share in the education of the Negro."

"We should never permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities."

"The slightest intercourse with a neighbor counts more with people than a bloody battle far away."

"I would rather be in a position where I am constantly raising the standard of my work rather than in a position where there is nothing more for me to do."

"It is at the bottom of life we must begin, not at the top."

"The individual who sweeps his own front steps will soon have the opportunity to sweep the whole town."

"The future of my race rests largely in the hands of our young men and women."

"My life work has been largely to prepare the way for better things."

"The very first lesson I learned in the crucible of life was that strength and moral courage are measured not by the tongue but by the trilby worn."

"I have not been able to find a substitute for patience."

"We must be as interested in the character of our public men as we are in their honesty."