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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
Must
Industry
Make
Economy
Ballot
Men
Alone
Ballots
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Skill
Political
Property
Cannot
Intelligence
Character
Skills
Back
Activity

More quotes by Booker T. Washington

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We must reinforce argument with results.
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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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 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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A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.
Booker T. Washington
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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
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I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.
Booker T. Washington
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No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
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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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
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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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It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to rebel, more courage not to strike back than to retaliate, more courage to be silent than to speak.
Booker T. Washington
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In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.
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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Do not do that which others can do as well.
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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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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If you truly want to measure the success of a man, you do not measure it by a position he has achieved, but by the obstacles he has overcome.
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 actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.
Booker T. Washington