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Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.

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
Character
Skills
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Must
Industry
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More quotes by Booker T. Washington

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Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.
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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You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.
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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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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We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.
Booker T. Washington
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I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.
Booker T. Washington
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Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker... there is no escape... people drag others or lift others up.
Booker T. Washington
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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
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A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else.
Booker T. Washington
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The time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to.
Booker T. Washington
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Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
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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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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You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.
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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The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.
Booker T. Washington
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Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves. It's wonderful when the people believe in their leader. It's more wonderful when the leader believes in their people! You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
Booker T. Washington