Booker T. Washington

"Progress will never be made as long as the Negro remains economically dependent."

"The Negro race will succeed or fail in proportion to the success or failure of its individual members."

"I believe that the future of the race depends on education and practical training."

"The most important thing is for the Negro to become a producer, not merely a consumer."

"The colored man must become self-reliant and self-respecting before he can command the respect of others."

"The individual who can do something that the world wants done is bound to make a living for himself and everybody else. He makes a living for himself; the world is under debt to him, and must pay him."

"Excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends."

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

"The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do with what he or she knows that counts."

"At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our civilization, as for all civilizations, before anything else, bread and the ability to earn bread."

"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."

"Character, not circumstances, makes the person."

"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public."

"The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men."

"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 agitation of questions of social equality is the extreme of folly."

"I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul because of his color."

"We should not permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities."

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

"My experience is that whites have sense enough to recognize their own, and blacks are no exception to this rule."

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

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles overcome."

"A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it is accepted by the majority."

"The individual who owns the land upon which another man works is bound, in the end, to control the man who works upon his land."

"Cast down your bucket where you are."

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

"I have always believed that the way to permanent relief and safety for the Negro is through the possession of intelligence and Christian character."

"There is a certain class of race problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds on, they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public."

"Require much of yourself and as much of others."

"The Negro race, like all human races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men."