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I have learned that 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 while trying to succeed

Ever since then I have had no patience with any school for my race in the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labour.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.

At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.

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

I want you to make up your minds that you are going to be more nearly perfect, are going to put more manly and womanly strength into the preparation of your lessons each day, that you may be more useful.

We cannot get upon our feet, as a people, until we learn the saving habit; until we learn to save every nickel, every dime and every dollar that we can spare.

The men you see spending most of their time looking for higher and more lucrative positions are, nine times out of ten, men who have made worthless failures in other places.

You will constantly be surprised to find how little you really know about your work, and how much more somebody else knows about it than you do.

There are but two directions in this life in which you can grow; backward or forward.

The point is, that we want to be constantly on the lookout for ways of improving whatever work we are engaged in, whether that work be milking cows or doing something else.

If we would be great, and good, and useful, we must pay the price. And remember that when we get down to the fundamental principles of truth, nature draws no colour line.

Any one can seek a job, but it requires a person of rare ability to create a job.

Make up your minds that you are going to overcome every discouragement, and that you are not going to let any discouragement overcome you.

Very many people, very many students, who otherwise would succeed, who would go through school creditably, graduating with honours, have failed to succeed because they became discouraged.

Your life will be wasted if you go away from here and have not learned that the greatest lesson of all is the lesson of brotherly love, of usefulness and of charity.

There is an indescribable something about work with the hands that tends to develop a student's mind.

There is a vast difference between working and being worked.

Our ability to make the world better depends entirely upon our ability to use every opportunity to make ourselves better.

No one gets much out of life who does not make his education a real, vital part of himself.

There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights.

The suspension of one man's dividends is the suspension of another man's pay envelope.

Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil.