Booker T. Washington: “I like my work so much that I want to work at my trade all day.”

I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race.

When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work, they began to assist with more enthusiasm.

Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play.

The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority.