From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.
What it means
Hatred is a sign of smallness, not strength, and love is what large-hearted people practise on purpose. Washington says he learned this from watching someone, not from being told.
“Cultivate” and “cherish” are deliberate words: both describe tending something so it grows. You can grow love or grow hatred, and what you choose to tend says how big you are.
The context
Washington is writing about General Samuel C. Armstrong, the head of the Hampton Institute, where Washington had studied. He admits he had assumed that Armstrong, who “fought the Southern white man,” would feel bitter toward the white South. Instead, he found Armstrong as anxious about the prosperity and happiness of the white race as the black: “I never heard him speak, in public or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South.”
The lesson stayed with him. A few sentences later Washington, who was born into slavery, writes that he resolved “that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
Why it matters
Washington had more reason than most to hate. His point is that hatred costs the person who holds it: it “narrows and degrades” the soul. Refusing it isn’t weakness or surrender; it’s protecting yourself from being shrunk by someone else’s wrongs.
He also shows how character is passed on. He learned it by watching one person’s example, not from a lecture, and the same is true of us. The way we speak about people who’ve wronged us teaches everyone listening, children above all, what kind of person to be.
About Booker T. Washington
American educator and writer, 1856–1915
Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on 5 April 1856, in Hale’s Ford, Virginia; the date came to light only after his death. He worked his way through the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, and on the recommendation of its head, Samuel C. Armstrong, he was named in 1881 as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
His Atlanta Address of 1895 made him nationally prominent, and his autobiography, Up From Slavery (1901), became a major text. He died in Tuskegee, Alabama, on 14 November 1915.
The source, and how we checked it
It comes from Up From Slavery, chapter 11, 1901.
The full passage:
From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak. It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
We matched the quote word for word against the Project Gutenberg text of Up From Slavery, chapter 11, "Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them". "His example" is General Samuel C. Armstrong's, as the preceding sentences make clear. We last checked this on 3 November 2026.