Character Building quotes

All teachers make mistakes sometimes, and you may depend upon it that it is an excellent teacher and a person of fine character who, when he or she has made a mistake, says frankly and plainly, "I have made a mistake," or "I don't know."

It takes a very good and a very bright teacher to say, "I don't know."

No teacher knows everything about every subject. A good teacher will say frankly and clearly, "I don't know. I cannot answer that question."

Your students will respect you a great deal more for your frankness and honesty.

Education is not what a person is able to hold in his head, so much as it is what a person is able to find.

I believe it was Daniel Webster who said that the truly educated man was not the one who had all knowledge in his head, but the one who knew where to look for information upon any subject upon which at any time he might want …

The kind of persons we want here are those who are not going to wait for you to tell them to do such things, but who will think of them for themselves and do them.

If we cannot turn out a man here who is capable of taking care of a pig sty, how can we expect him to take care of affairs of State?

Then, again, some of you are expected to take care of the roads. I should have liked to have seen boys this morning so much interested in working on the roads that they would have put sawdust from this building to the gate.

There are people in the world who never think, who never map out anything for themselves, who have to wait to be told what to do. People of that kind are not worth anything.

They really ought to pay rent for the air they breath, for they only vitiate it.

Now we do not want such people as those here. We want people who are going to think, people who are going to prepare themselves. I noticed an incident this morning. Did you ever hear that side door creak on its hinges before this morning?

We are compelled to get rid of every student here who is weak in mind, weak in morals, or weak in industry. We cannot keep a student here unless he counts for one. You must count one yourself.

You eat for one, you drink for one, and you sleep for one; and so you will have to count for one if you are going to stay here.

I want you to go out into the world, not to have an easy time, but to make sacrifices, and to help somebody else. There are those who need your help and your sacrifice. You may be called upon to sacrifice a great deal;

We want you to help somebody else. We want you not to think of yourselves alone.

The more you do to make somebody else happy, the more happiness will you receive in turn.

If you want to be happy, if you want to live a contented life, if you want to live a life of genuine pleasure, do something for somebody else.

We want you to help somebody else. We want you not to think of yourselves alone. The more you do to make somebody else happy, the more happiness will you receive in turn.

If you want to be happy, if you want to live a contented life, if you want to live a life of genuine pleasure, do something for somebody else.

When you feel unhappy, disagreeable and miserable, go to some one else who is miserable and do that person an act of kindness, and you will find that you will be made happy.

I am not trying to discourage you about wearing nice collars. I like to see every collar shine. I like to see every collar as bright as possible. I like to see you wear good, attractive collars.

I do not, however, want you to get the idea that collars make the man.

You quite often see fine cuffs and collars, when there is no real man there. You want to be sure to get the man first.

At any rate make your words just as short as possible, and your sentences as short and simple as you can make them.

There is great power in simplicity, simplicity of speech, simplicity of life in every form.

The world has no patience with people who are superficial, who are trying to show off, who are trying to be what the world knows they are not.

When other people were failing in all parts of the country, the evidence of this man's character, his regard for truth and honest dealing, caused money to come into his bank when it was being withdrawn from others.

Character is a power.

If you want to be powerful in the world, if you want to be strong, influential and useful, you can be so in no better way than by having strong character;

But the highly educated person, the one who is really cultivated, is gentle and sympathetic to everyone.

Education is meant to make us absolutely honest in dealing with our fellows.

I don't care how much arithmetic we have, or how many cities we can locate;—it all is useless unless we have an education that makes us absolutely honest.

When you speak to the average person about labor—industrial work, especially—he seems to get the idea at once that you are opposed to his head being educated—that you simply wish to put him to work.

Anybody that knows anything about industrial education knows that it teaches a person just the opposite—how not to work.

It teaches him to make water work for him,—air, steam, all the forces of nature. That is what is meant by industrial education.

The test of a true lady or gentleman comes when that individual is brought in contact with some one who is considered beneath her or him, some one who is ignorant or poor.

Show me a man who is himself wealthy, and who is gentle and polite to the ignorant about him, and to the poor people about him, and I will show you every time a true gentleman.

When Prince Henry of Prussia was in this country, I remember reading this description of one of the prominent public men who received him:

When Prince Henry of Prussia was in this country, I remember reading this description of one of the prominent public men who received him: "

He is such a true gentleman that he can meet a prince without himself being embarrassed, and can meet a poor man without embarrassing the poor man.

"

We want you to learn to control your temper.

Some one has said that the difference between an animal and a man is that the beast has no method of learning to control his temper.

With the individual, the human being, there is education and training. He learns to master himself, to have an even temper; learns to master his temper completely.

the cook is a servant, because it is her duty to serve those for whom she works; the housemaid is a servant, because it is her duty to care for the property intrusted to her in the best manner in which she is able.

In one way or another, every individual who amounts to anything is a servant.

The man or the woman who is not a servant is one who accomplishes nothing. It is very often true that a race, like an individual, does not appreciate the opportunities that are spread out before it until those opportunities have disappeared.

What is true of the coachman is true of the butler. In too many cases, I fear, we use these occupations merely as stepping stones, holding on to them until we can find something else to do, in a careless and slipshod manner.

We want to change all this, and put our whole souls into these occupations, and in a large degree make them our life-work.

In proportion as we do this, we shall lay a foundation upon which our children and grandchildren are to rise to higher things. The foundation of every race must be laid in the common every-day occupations that are right about our doors.

I want each boy and each girl who belongs to this institution to be deep down in his or her heart a gentleman or a lady.

A gentleman means simply this: a generous person; one who has learned to be kind; one who has learned to think not of himself first, but of the happiness and welfare of others.

Let us put this spirit into our Conference day the coming week, and the day and week will be the greatest and most successful that we have ever had.

Until we do this, we shall not be able to talk away, or to argue away, this prejudice.

We cannot talk our way into our rights; we must work our way, think our way, into them.

And you will find that just in proportion as we do this, we are going to get all we deserve.

I would not give a snap of my finger for a person who would give up for that. The thing for you to do is to fight it out.

Get something in your head, and don't worry about what you can get to put on it. The clothes will come afterward.

You are going to be greatly discouraged sometimes, but if you will heed the lesson of fighting out what you have undertaken, that same disposition will follow you all through life, and you will get a reputation, because people will say of you that there …

… has little patience with the man or woman who takes no real interest in the performance of a duty, or who runs against a snag and gets discouraged, and then simply tells why he did not do a thing, and gives excuses instead of results.

Opportunities never come a second time, nor do they wait for our leisure.

The years come to us but once, and they come then only to pass swiftly on, bearing the ineffaceable record we have put upon them.

He watched the clock, for fear that he would work one minute past twelve o'clock at noon and past six o'clock at night. He did not feel that he had any responsibility to look out for his employer's interests.

The first boy did a dollar's worth of work for fifty cents.

He was always ready to be at the store before time;

It was this quality in the first boy that made him valuable and caused him to rise.

Why should we call him "fortunate" or "lucky?" I think it would be much more suitable to say of him: "He is responsible."

It is natural and praiseworthy for a person to be looking for a higher and better position than the one he occupies.

By conversing with intelligent and experienced persons, and by your own experiments, you can get much valuable information about your work. Never get to the point where you are ashamed to ask somebody else for information.

The ignorant man will always be ignorant, if he fears that by asking for information he will betray his lack of knowledge.

Know all there is to be known about the position you occupy, but ever feel that there is more for you to learn.

Not long ago an old coloured man living in this State said to me:

"I's done quit libin' in de ashes. I's got my second freedom."

That remark meant, in this case, that that old man by economy, hard work and proper guidance, after twenty years of struggle, had freed himself from debt, had paid for fifty acres of land, had built a comfortable house, and was a tax-payer.

When they say that the Negro is not fit for citizenship, I want you to show them a man of our race paying taxes on a cotton factory.

I want you to be able to show them Negroes who stand in the front in the affairs of State, of religion, of education, of mechanics, of commerce and of household economy.

You remember the old admonition: "By this sign we shall conquer." Let it be our motto.

If you are a mister, encourage the people to call you by that title. If you are a minister and preach interesting and instructive sermons, people are going to be impressed by what you say and not by the title you bear.

The title is the shadow; what you say is the substance.

When a person is simple, he is on the strong side. People not only have more respect for him, but he accomplishes more.

Some of us think we can improve our colour. Some get flour, and others get other kinds of mixtures which are called face powders. There is no use for this. Any man will lose respect for a girl who abuses herself in this way.

Only get something into your head, and then you will find that these matters of dress will adjust themselves.

While some of you do not dress so well as you might, yet, if you will give the contents of your heads the proper attention, you will find that the matter of dress will not trouble you.

And so it has ever been, so it is, and ever will be.

The world, regardless of race, or colour, or condition, admires and approves a real thing.

But sham, buffoonery, mere imitation, mere superficiality, never has brought success and never will bring it.

He told the white man to take back his mules, to take back his waggon and buggy; and he gave up the rented land.

He had resolved to be a man.

A few acres of land were secured. He made his bed in the cotton seed at night. He hired a boy to come to his place at night, and by moonlight he pulled a plough which the boy guided.

A mule was bought, and then another. To-day this man is the owner of a comfortable home, is a stockholder in one of the banks of his county, and his note or check will be honoured by any business house there.

While others were talking, or debating over second-hand doctrines learned by rote, this strong son of nature had found himself and solved his own problem.

I might tell you the story of another man of our race who began his successful business life in the hollow of a tree for his home; without furniture or bed-clothing. But that tree, and the land on which it stood, were his own.

I might tell you the story of another man of our race who began his successful business life in the hollow of a tree for his home; without furniture or bed-clothing. But that tree, and the land on which it stood, were his own.

You had better begin life in a hollow tree and be a man, than begin it in a rented house and be a mere tool, the imitation of a man.

If you were to go into the Western part of this country you would find it filled with men of the highest culture, profound scholarship, and enduring wealth, whose ancestors a few generations ago began life in a dug-out, in a hay loft, or in …

… building of houses and factories, and in the constructing and operating of machinery, and I will show you the race that in the long run moulds public thought, that controls government, that leads in commerce, in the sciences, in the arts and in the professions.

What we should do in all our schools is to turn out fewer job-seekers and more job-makers.

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

What we should do in all our schools is to turn out fewer job-seekers and more job-makers.

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

If it may seem to some of you that what I have been saying overlooks the development of the race in morals, ethics, religion and statesmanship, my answer would be this.

… that because a tree is planted deep down in Mother Earth, because it comes in contact with clay, and rocks, and sand, and water, that through its graceful branches, its beautiful leaves and its fragrant blossoms it teaches no lesson of truth, beauty and divinity.

You cannot plant a tree in air and have it live.

Try it. No matter how much we may praise its proportions and enjoy its beauty, it dies unless its roots and fibres touch and have their foundation in Mother Earth. What is true of the tree is true of a race.

I want to see you own land. I want to see you own a decent home. And let me say right here that your home is not decent or complete unless it contains a good, comfortable bath-tub.

Of the two, I believe I would rather see you own a bathtub without a house, than a house without a bathtub.

If you get the tub you are sure to get the house later. So when you go out from here, buy a bathtub, even if you cannot afford to buy anything else.

The possession of money, the having of a bank account, even if small, gives us a certain amount of self-respect.

An individual who has a bank account walks through a street so much more erect; he looks people in the face.

The people in the community in which he lives have a confidence in him and a respect for him which they would not have if he did not possess the bank account.

I want you to make up your minds to do this; to decide that you are going to continually grow—and grow more to-morrow than to-day.

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

You can grow stronger, or you can grow weaker; you can grow greater, or smaller; but it will be impossible for you to stand still.

Don't go home and feel ashamed of your parents because you think they don't know as much as you think you know. Don't think that you are too good to help them.

It would be better for you not to have any education, than for you to go home and feel ashamed of your parents, or not want to help them.

Let me tell you of one of the most encouraging and most helpful things that I have known of in connection with the life of our students after they leave this institution.

If you can extend a helping hand to a white person, feel just as happy in doing so as in helping a black person.

In the sight of God there is no colour line, and we want to cultivate a spirit that will make us forget that there is such a line anywhere.

We want to be larger and broader than the people who would oppress us on account of our colour.

We want to be larger and broader than the people who would oppress us on account of our colour.

No one ever loses anything by being a gentleman or a lady.

No person ever lost anything by being broad. Remember that if we are kind and useful, if we are moral, if we go out and practise these traits, no matter what people say about us, they cannot pull us down.

… are without morality, without liberality, without economy and property, without all those qualities which go to make a people and a nation great and strong, no matter what we may say about ourselves and what other people may say about us, we are losing ground.

Nobody can give us those qualities merely by praising us and talking well about us; and when we possess them, nobody can take them from us by speaking ill of us.

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