Booker T. Washington

We have cleared the forests, reclaimed the land, and are building cities, railroads, and great institutions.

The world cares very little what you or I know, but it does care a great deal about what you or I do.

In all things social as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man. It is more important that we be prepared for voting than that we vote, more important that we be prepared to hold office than that we hold office, more important that we be prepared for the highest recognition than that we be recognized.

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

There is no escape — man drags man down, or man lifts man up.

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

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.

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