Booker T. Washington

The second boy was an eye-servant who was afraid that he would do more than he was paid to do--he was afraid that he would give fifty cents' worth of labour for twenty-five cents.

Let me tell you, here and now, that unless you young men and young women come to have this characteristic, your lives are going to fall far short of the best and noblest achievement possible.

If we wish to make them beautiful years or profitable years, we must do it moment by moment as they glide before us.

The years come to us but once, and they come then only to pass swiftly on, bearing the ineffaceable record we have put upon them.

Opportunities never come a second time, nor do they wait for our leisure.

But the world has little patience with the man or woman who takes no real interest in the performance of a duty, or who runs against a snag and gets discouraged, and then simply tells why he did not do a thing, and gives excuses instead of…

The world is looking for men and women who can tell one why they can do this thing or that thing, how a certain difficulty was surmounted or a certain obstacle removed.

Take enough interest in whatever you are engaged in to see that it is going to come out in the end just as nearly right, just as nearly perfect, as anything you can do will go towards making it right or perfect.

The thing to do is to feel some responsibility in seeing that things are done right yourself.

You owe it to yourselves because it is right and honest, because nothing less than this is right and honest, and because you never can be really successful and really happy until you do study and work and live in this way.

You owe this not only to your fellow-students, your teachers, the school, and the people who support the institution, but you owe it even more to yourselves.

Each student ought to feel that he or she has a personal responsibility to do each task in the very best manner possible.