No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

About Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.

More quotations from Booker T. Washington

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

—Booker T. Washington

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

—Booker T. Washington

More quotations tagged with “dignity”

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

—Aristotle

dignity

Never be ruled by possessions, and never, ever make wealth more important to you than your self-respect and your dignity.

—Julie Garwood in Prince Charming

dignity wealth self-respect possessions

To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man—these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity.… History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own.

—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

history society heroism dignity leadership surrender decision submission hero worship

As you press on with justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapons of love.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

justice love dignity discipline

To be a consumer is the most primitive level of being. It is to be a mouth, an eater, a devourer of things. To discover the truth of who we are, we must discard the consumer mentality and reclaim our spiritual dignity.

—David Frawley

spirituality discovery dignity consumer mouth mentality