Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Circumstances
Determining
Success
Responds
Important
Factor
Men
Surround
Life
Factors
Response
Ultimate
Failure

More quotes by Booker T. Washington

Image
The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts.
Booker T. Washington
Image
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
Image
The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.
Booker T. Washington
Image
Character is power.
Booker T. Washington
Image
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
Image
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
Image
No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.
Booker T. Washington
Image
Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragement he would not give up.
Booker T. Washington
Image
Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
Booker T. Washington
Image
There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
Booker T. Washington
Image
...those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms [of the rich] do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much sufering would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises.
Booker T. Washington
Image
Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.
Booker T. Washington
Image
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
Booker T. Washington
Image
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
Image
The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.
Booker T. Washington
Image
No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.
Booker T. Washington
Image
Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.
Booker T. Washington
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
Booker T. Washington