Booker T. Washington

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”

“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.”

“Notwithstanding this, I think I am right in saying that the persons who accomplish most in this world, those to whom on account of their helpfulness the world looks most for service—those who are most useful in every way—are those who are constantly seeing and appreciating the bright side as well as the dark side of life.”

“All teachers make mistakes sometimes, and you may depend upon it that it is an excellent teacher and a person of fine character who, when he or she has made a mistake, says frankly and plainly, "I have made a mistake," or "I don't know." It takes a very good and a very bright teacher to say, "I don't know." No teacher knows everything about every subject.”

“To do the most that lies in you, you must go with a heart and head full of hope and faith in the world, believing that there is work for you to do, believing that you are the person to accomplish that work, and the one who is going to accomplish it.”

“We help you that you may help somebody else, and if you do not do this, when you go out from here, then our work here has been in vain.”

“Now the point I especially want to make to-night is this: all of you must bear in mind the fact that you are not only to keep yourselves clean, and pure, and sober, and true, in every respect, but you owe a constant responsibility to yourself to see that you exert a helpful influence on others also.”

“I want you, as you go out from this institution, whether you are graduates or not, whether you have been here one year or four years—to go out with the idea that you must set a high example for every one in your community.”

“You must so shape your lives that the hundreds and thousands of those who are looking to you for guidance may profit by your example.”

“It is true that in the last few months the institution has come into a great deal of prominence, and is meeting with what the world calls "success." But we must remember that very often it is with institutions as it is with individuals—success may injure them more than poverty.”

“We can succeed only in proportion as the student who makes the mortar, who lays the bricks, puts his whole conscience into that work, and does it just as thoroughly as it is possible for him to do it.”

“The student who lays the bricks must learn to lay each brick as well as it is possible for him to lay it, and then do still better work on the morrow.”

“You want to be very sure, too, that as you go out into the world, you go out not ashamed to work; not ashamed to put in practice what you have learned here.”

“You know you sometimes get frightened and discouraged about the laws that some of the States are inclined to pass, and that some of them are passing, but there is no State, there is no municipality, there is no power on earth, that can neutralize the influence of a high, pure, simple and useful life.”

“Of course it is the right and the duty of every denomination to erect its own theological seminaries and its colleges, where the special tenets of that denomination are taught to those who are preparing for its pulpit; but no one has a right to let this denominational spirit defeat the work of a public school to which all should be free to go.”

“Wherever you go, then, make up your minds that you are going to make your influence felt in favour of better prepared teachers and preachers—in better preparation of all those who stand for leaders of the people.”

“You are to exercise this influence in the communities where you go; and if you fail to exercise it for the good of other individuals, you have failed to accomplish the purpose for which this institution exists.”

“Whenever you promise, moreover, to do a piece of work for a man, there is a contract binding you to do an honest day's labour—and the man to pay you for an honest day's labour.”

“If you fail to give a full honest day's work, if you know that you have done only three-quarters of a day's work, or four-fifths, it may seem to you at the time that it has paid, but in the long run you lose by it.”

“If you want to be powerful in the world, if you want to be strong, influential and useful, you can be so in no better way than by having strong character; but you cannot have a strong character if you yield to the temptations about which I have been speaking.”

“You may go out and make great speeches, you may write books or addresses which are great literature, but unless you have character behind what you say and write, it will amount to nothing; it will all go to the winds.”

“We want to feel that in every student who goes out from here there is a character which can be depended upon in the night as well as in the day.”

“And so you will find it all through life—those persons who are going to be constantly sought after, constantly in demand, are those who make the best use of their opportunities, who work unceasingly to become proficient in whatever they attempt to do.”

“Remember that whether you are hackmen, or business men, it pays whenever you cannot fill an engagement to explain beforehand why you cannot, and that unless you make a practice of doing this, it will be impossible for you to get ahead or to attain to places of trust and responsibility, no matter how much education you may have.”

“The end of all education, whether of head or hand or heart, is to make an individual good, to make him useful, to make him powerful; is to give him goodness, usefulness and power in order that he may exert a helpful influence upon his fellows.”

“Now if any of you have a temper that often gets to be your master, make up your mind that it is a part of your duty here to learn to control it.”

“This may, for the time being, seem to make you unpopular; it may inconvenience you, it may deprive you of something that you count dear; but the individual who cultivates that kind of courage, who, at the cost of everything, always speaks the truth, is the individual who in the end will be successful, is the one who in the end will come out the conqueror.”

“And you will disappoint us unless you are above the average man, unless you go out from here with the determination that you are going to perform more than your duty.”

“It should not be our thought to see how little we can put into our work, but how much; not how quickly we can get rid of our tasks, but how well we can do them.”

“When I say work, I mean study of books, work of the hand, effort of the body, willingness of the heart.”

“This institution can grow only by each person putting his thought into his work, by planning how he can improve the work of his particular department, by constantly striving to make his work more useful to the institution, by keeping the place where he works cleaner, and making his work more business-like and more systematic.”

“When an individual gets a reputation—no matter what he has undertaken—of not having the quality of sticking to a thing until he succeeds in reaching the end, that reputation nullifies the influence for good of the better traits of his character in every direction.”

“It is comparatively easy to perform almost any kind of work, but the value of any work is in having it performed so that the desired results may be most speedily reached, and in having the means with which the worker labours arranged so as to meet certain ends.”

“We must keep this fact before us, then; that institutions of this kind are of little value unless they can pave the way to make the results of their work felt among the masses of the people who are especially remote from these institutions.”

“As a general thing the people—those in the country especially—do not ask anybody to come and give them food, clothing and houses; all they ask is for some person, some honest, upright man or woman who is interested in their welfare, to come among them and show them how to direct their efforts and their energy, show them how best to realize on the results of their work, so that they can supply their own moral, religious and material needs and educate their children.”

“Your education, in a large measure, is a gift from the public, and it seems to me that one of the first things you should do is to repay, to as large an extent as is possible with your services, what has been spent in giving you so large a part of your education.”

“I wish to speak more specifically to-night on this subject—on what I may term the importance of your feeling a sense of personal responsibility not only for the successful performance of every task set you, but for the successful outcome of every worthy undertaking with which you come in contact.”

“The happy people and the successful people are those who go out of their way to reach and influence for good as many persons as they can.”

“In order to do this, though, in order best to fit one's self to live this kind of life, it is important that certain habits be acquired; and an essential one of these is the habit of realizing one's responsibility to others.”

“Your actions will affect other people in one way or another, and you will be responsible for the result.”

“Each student ought to feel that he or she has a personal responsibility to do each task in the very best manner possible.”

“The thing to do is to feel some responsibility in seeing that things are done right yourself.”

“And if the task or errand passes out of your hands before it is completed, do not feel that your responsibility in the matter ends until you have impressed it upon the minds and heart of the person to whom you turn over the further performance of the duty.”

“But the world has little patience with the man or woman who takes no real interest in the performance of a duty, or who runs against a snag and gets discouraged, and then simply tells why he did not do a thing, and gives excuses instead of results.”

“So long as a man does his whole duty in what he is engaged in, he is not to be condemned for looking for something better to do.”

“In the first place you should be continually on the lookout for opportunities to improve yourselves in your present work.”

“You should be constantly on the lookout for chances to make yourselves more valuable to your present employer, and more efficient in your work for him.”

“The point is, that we want to be constantly on the lookout for ways of improving whatever work we are engaged in, whether that work be milking cows or doing something else.”

“Get hold of every book or paper that you can which has anything to do with your line of work.”

“By conversing with intelligent and experienced persons, and by your own experiments, you can get much valuable information about your work.”

“There is no person who makes himself of so little use in the world as the one who feels that he knows all there is to be known about his work.”

“You will constantly be surprised to find how little you really know about your work, and how much more somebody else knows about it than you do.”

“Then you can make yourself valuable and in demand just in proportion as you consider that the work you are performing is your own.”

“Make haste and get to the point where you can feel that everything connected with the shop in which you work, or in the office, or in the stable, is under your care, and that you alone are responsible for it.”

“I desire to call your attention for a few minutes to-night to the fact that one thing is dependent for success upon another, one individual is dependent for success upon another, one family in a community upon other families for their mutual prosperity, one part of a State upon the other parts for the successful government of the State.”

“The success of the whole depends upon having every person connected with the institution do his or her whole duty.”

“We are very apt to get the idea that there are high positions and that there are low positions, that there is important service and unimportant service; but I believe that God expects the same amount of conscientious work from a person in a low position as from one in a high position, that He expects the same conscientious service whether the work be a big task or a little one.”

“We are dependent as an institution—every institution is dependent—for success, upon the individual consciences of those connected with it as teachers and students; and there is nothing that gives me more satisfaction and pleasure, and more faith in the future of the school, than to see examples of conscientious work here.”

“But where I fear for your success is when you come to the performance of the small duties—the duties which you think no one else will know about, the things which no one will see you do.”

“The general problem we have to work out here, and work it out with fear and trembling, is:—Can we educate the individual conscience?”

“We can fill your heads with knowledge, and we can train your hands to work with skill, but unless all this training of head and hand is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing.”

“Then we want to have you to learn to govern your actions, not alone for the sake of the result which they will have upon yourself and those who are near and dear to you, but for the sake of your influence upon all with whom you will come in contact.”

“But sham, buffoonery, mere imitation, mere superficiality, never has brought success and never will bring it.”

“I want you to go forward by thoroughness in your work; by being more conscientious in your work; by loving your work more to-day than you did yesterday.”

“I want to emphasize the fact that we want you to grow in the direction of character—to grow stronger each day in the matter of character.”

“I want you to be more conscientious in your thoughts and in your work, and with regard to your duty toward others.”

“Then, and this is more important still, we want you to take this habit of growth—this disposition to grow in the right direction—out with you from the school, and scatter it as an influence for good wherever you go.”

“We want to see you grow in reputation for being honest, conscientious, intelligent, hard-working; no matter in what capacity you are employed.”