Booker T. Washington

Despite superficial and temporary signs which might lead one to entertain a contrary opinion, there was never a time when I felt more hopeful for the race than I do at the present.

Wherever our graduates go, the changes which soon begin to appear in the buying of land, improving homes, saving money, in education, and in high moral characters are remarkable.

What is equally important, they are exhibiting a degree of common sense and self-control which is causing better relations to exist between the races, and is causing the Southern white man to learn to believe in the value of educating the…

We try to keep constantly in mind the fact that the worth of the school is to be judged by its graduates.

By it a race must rise or fall, succeed or fail, and in the last analysis mere sentiment counts for little.

This country demands that every race shall measure itself by the American standard.

In the economy of God there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed—there is but one for a race.

If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people and the bringing about of better relations between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more.

This problem Harvard University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the masses up.

How shall we make the mansion on yon Beacon Street feel and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in Alabama cotton-fields or Louisiana sugar-bottoms?

The more I come into contact with wealthy people, the more I believe that they are growing in the direction of looking upon their money simply as an instrument which God has placed in their hand for doing good with.