The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign induced a number of persons to make an earnest effort to get me to enter political life, but I refused, still believing that I could find other service which would prove of more permanent value to my race.
From his autobiography, Washington reflects on declining political opportunities to pursue service he deemed more valuable for his race.
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This country demands that every race shall measure itself by the American standard.
I have often said to my friends that if I can use whatever prominence may have come to me as an instrument with which to do good, I am content to have it.
The English servant expects, as a rule, to be nothing but a servant, and so he perfects himself in the art to a degree that no class of servants in America has yet reached.
This problem Harvard University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the masses up.