Booker T. Washington

These night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night than the other children did during the day.

It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact.

I have always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation of seeming to be that which she was not—of trying to impress my schoolmates and others with the…

I have always felt proud that she refused to go into debt for that which she did not have the money to pay for.

Since that time I have owned many kinds of caps and hats, but never one of which I have felt so proud as of the cap made of the two pieces of cloth sewed together by my mother.

Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort.

The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly.

I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but a type of that Christlike body of men and women who went into the Negro schools at the close of the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting up my race.

The history of the world fails to show a higher, purer, and more unselfish class of men and women than those who found their way into those Negro schools.

When a white boy undertakes a task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed.

On the other hand, people are usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail.

As soon as the last good-bys were said, and the steamer had cut loose from the wharf, the load of care, anxiety, and responsibility which I had carried for eighteen years began to lift itself from my shoulders at the rate, it seemed to me…