Historical voices

When one takes a broad survey of the country, he will find that the most useful and influential people in it are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better.

I think that the presentation of facts, on a high, dignified plane, is all the begging that most rich people care for.

I have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who possess sense enough to earn money have sense enough to know how to give it away, and that the mere making known of the facts regarding Tuskegee, and especially the facts regarding…

I have often heard persons condemned for not giving away money, who, to my own knowledge, were giving away thousands of dollars every year so quietly that the world knew nothing about it.

In proportion as one loses himself in the way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.

In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause.

After considerable experience in coming into contact with wealthy and noted men, I have observed that those who have accomplished the greatest results are those who “keep under the body”; are those who never grow excited or lose…

The General knew, too, that the way to strengthen Hampton was to make it a centre of unselfish power in the working out of the whole Southern problem.

He knew that the people in the North who gave money gave it for the purpose of helping the whole cause of Negro civilization, and not merely for the advancement of any one school.

He was too big to be little, too good to be mean.

Let them once understand that you are unselfishly interested in them, and you can lead them to any extent.

Every individual responds to confidence, and this is not more true of any race than of the Negroes.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

It has been my aim to have them speak with directness and frankness about anything that concerns the life of the school.

I have further sought to have them feel that I am at the institution as their friend and adviser, and not as their overseer.

From the first I have sought to impress the students with the idea that Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of the officers, but that it is their institution, and that they have as much interest in it as any of the trustees or…

At the present time there is almost no Southern state that is not putting forth efforts in the direction of securing industrial education for its white boys and girls, and in most cases it is easy to trace the history of these efforts back…

Another thing that is becoming more apparent each year in the development of education in the South is the influence of General Armstrong’s idea of education; and this not upon the blacks alone, but upon the whites also.

All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole Nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South.

The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man.

The white man who begins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man.

I have noted time and time again that when an individual perjures himself in order to break the force of the black man’s ballot, he soon learns to practise dishonesty in other relations of life, not only where the Negro is concerned, but…

The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man the injury is permanent.

I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race.