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We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.

Booker T. Washington

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Booker T. Washington
Age: 59 †
Born: 1856
Born: April 5
Died: 1915
Died: November 14
Autobiographer
Businessperson
Educator
Human Rights Activist
Pedagogue
Politician
Teacher
Writer
Booker Taliaferro Washington
Booker Washington
Selfishness
Rise
Clouds
Ignorance
Narrowness

More quotes by Booker T. Washington

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We don't just borrow words on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Booker T. Washington
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The longer I live and the more I study the question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much the problem of what you will do with Negro, as what the Negro will do with you and your 'civilization'.
Booker T. Washington
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An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.
Booker T. Washington
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Great men cultivate love and only little men cherish a spirit of hatred assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
Booker T. Washington
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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.
Booker T. Washington
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There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
Booker T. Washington
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From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
Booker T. Washington
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In my contact with people, I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls – with the great outside world.
Booker T. Washington
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Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them. (also cited as: I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.)
Booker T. Washington
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The Negro is not the man farthest down. The condition of the coloured farmer in the most backward parts of the Southern States of America, even where he has the least education and the least encouragement, is incomparably better than the condition and opportunities of the agricultural population in Sicily.
Booker T. Washington
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Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances.
Booker T. Washington
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I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice, for nothing else makes one so blind and narrow.
Booker T. Washington
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You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.
Booker T. Washington
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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.
Booker T. Washington
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The circumstances that surround a man's life are not important. How that man responds to those circumstances IS IMPORTANT. His response is the ultimate determining factor between success and failure.
Booker T. Washington
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I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I resolved then that I would permit no man, no matter what his color, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Booker T. Washington
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I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high-water mark of pure and useful living.
Booker T. Washington
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We must not only become reliable, progressive, skillful and intelligent, but we must keep the idea constantly before our youths that all forms of labor, whether with the hand or head, are honorable.
Booker T. Washington
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My whole life has largely been one of surprises.
Booker T. Washington
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Think about it: we went into slavery pagans we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists we came out with the American ballot in our hands.
Booker T. Washington