Madam C. J. Walker

“As I bent over the washboard and looked at my arms buried in soapsuds, I said to myself, 'What are you going to do when you grow old and your back gets stiff?' This set me to thinking, but with all my thinking I couldn't see how a poor washerwoman was going to better my condition.”

“I had little or no opportunity when I started out in life.”

“The girls and women of our race must not be afraid to take hold of business endeavor and, by patient industry, close economy, determined effort and close application to business, wring success out of a number of business opportunities that lie at their very doors.”

“Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”

“I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it!”

“I got my start by giving myself a start.”

“I want to live to help my race.”

“My advice to every one expecting to go into business is to hit often and hit hard; in other words, strike with all your might.”

“Everybody told me I was making a mistake by going into this business, but I know how to grow hair as well as I know how to grow cotton.”

“I am not ashamed of my past; I am not ashamed of my humble beginnings.”

“My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself in dressing or running around in an automobile, but I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others.”

“Don't think that because you have to go down in the wash-tub that you are any less a lady!”

“If I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard.”

“I am not satisfied in making money for myself. I endeavor to provide employment for hundreds of the women of my race.”

“This is the greatest country under the sun. But we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty, cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice.”

“In a dream, a big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. I made up my mind I would begin to sell it.”

“I want the great masses of my people to take a greater pride in their appearance and to give their hair proper attention.”

“I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations.”

“There is no royal flower strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for whatever success I have attained has been the result of much hard work and many sleepless nights.”

“I feel that I am in a business that is a credit to the womanhood of our race.”