Booker T. Washington: “If we wish to make them beautiful years or profitable years, we must do it moment by moment as they glide before us.”

When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property.

The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is.

When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which…

From the time that I can remember anything, almost every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports.