50 Quotes by George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver, an African American scientist, educator, and inventor, made significant contributions to agricultural research and innovation in the early 20th century. Born into slavery, Carver overcame adversity to become one of the most prominent figures in the field of agricultural science. He is best known for his work with peanuts and sweet potatoes, developing innovative uses for these crops and promoting sustainable farming practices that helped farmers diversify their crops and improve soil quality. Carver's efforts not only transformed agricultural practices but also had broader societal impacts by promoting self-sufficiency among rural communities and offering economic opportunities. His commitment to education and scientific exploration inspired generations, especially within African American communities, to pursue knowledge and innovation as tools for empowerment.
George Washington Carver Quotes
There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation – veneer isn't worth anything. (Meaning)
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. (Quote Meaning)
Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books. (Meaning)
Fear of something is at the root of hate for others. (Quote Meaning)
Learn to do common things uncommonly well. (Meaning)
Nature is the greatest teacher. (Quote Meaning)
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. (Meaning)
When I was young, I said to God, 'God, tell me the mystery of the universe.' But God answered, 'That knowledge is for me alone.' So I said, 'God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.' Then God said, 'Well George, that's more nearly your size.' And he told me.
Start where you are, with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied. (Quote Meaning)
When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world. (Meaning)
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. (Quote Meaning)
God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His. No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way of doing it are revealed to me. I never have to grope for methods. The method is revealed to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.
Most people search high and wide for the key to success. If they only knew, the key to their dreams lies within.
I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.
No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it. (Meaning)
Where there is no vision, there is no hope. (Quote Meaning)
Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater.
As I worked on projects which fulfilled a real human need forces were working through me which amazed me. I would often go to sleep with an apparently insoluble problem. When I woke the answer was there. Why, then, should we who believe in Christ be so surprised at what God can do with a willing man in a laboratory? Some things must be baffling to the critic who has never been born again.
The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible.
Education, in the broadest of truest sense, will make an individual seek to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of condition.
Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough.
When our thoughts - which bring actions - are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be.
It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.
One of the things that has helped me as much as any other is not how long I am going to live, but how much I can do while living.
Do what you can, with what you have and do it now!
Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise. (Meaning)
Learn to do the common things uncommonly well. (Quote Meaning)
Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. Keep your thoughts free from hate, and you need have no fear from those who hate you.
There is literally nothing that I ever asked to do, that I asked the blessed Creator to help me to do, that I have not been able to accomplish.
Unkindness to anything means an injustice to that thing. If I am unkind to you I do you an injustice, or wrong you in some way. On the other hand, if I try to assist you in every way that I can to make a better citizen and in every way to do my very best for you, I am kind to you. The above principles apply with equal force to the soil. The farmer whose soil produces less every year, is unkind to it in some way; that is, he is not doing by it what he should; he is robbing it of some substance it must have, and he becomes, therefore, a soil robber rather than a progressive farmer.
Young people, I want to beg of you always keep your eyes open to what Mother Nature has to teach you. By so doing you will learn many valuable things every day of your life.
Since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible. (Meaning)
Believe. The promise of God are real. They are as real, as solid, yes infinitely more solid than this table which the materialist so thoroughly believes in. If you would only believe, O ye of little faith.
To those who have as yet not learned the secret of true happiness, which is the joy of coming into the closest relationship with the Maker and Preserver of all things: begin now to study the little things in your own door yard.
Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth.
I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for ones self.
My purpose alone must be God's purpose.
All my life I have risen regularly at four o'clock and have gone into the woods and talked to God. There He gives me my orders for the day.
There are two ways, one is right; the other is wrong. If your work is only about right, then it is wrong.
You can't teach people anything. You can only draw out.
There is no shortcut to achievement.
Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.
Without my Savior, I am nothing.
There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation - veneer isn't worth anything.
We get closer to God as we get more intimately and understandingly acquainted with the things He has created. I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for one's self.
We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts.
I know that my Redeemer lives. Thank God I love humanity, complexion doesn't interest me one single a bit.
God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His.
I believe that the great Creator has put ores and oil on this Earth to give us a breathing spell ... as we exhaust them, we must be prepared to fall back on our farms, which are God's true storehouse. We can learn to synthesize materials for every human need from things that grow.
Nature is the greatest teacher and I learn from her best when others are asleep. In the still dark hours before sunrise God tells me of the plans I am to fulfill.
All flowers talk to me and so do hundreds of little living things in the woods. I learn what I know by watching and loving everything.
One reason I never patent my products is that if I did it would take so much time, I would get nothing else done. But mainly I don't want my discoveries to benefit specific favored persons.
I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. (Quote Meaning)
I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life - but there was no one to tell me.
It is simply service that measures success. (Meaning)
Whatever you love opens its secrets to you.
You can't tear up everything just to get the dollar out of it without suffering as result. It is a travesty to burn our woods and thereby burn up the fertilizer nature has provided for us. We must enrich our soil every year instead of merely depleting it. It is fundamental that nature will drive away those who commit sin against it.
Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise. At no other time have I so sharp an understanding of what God means to do with me as in these hours of dawn.
If you listen carefully enough to anything, it will talk to you.
When I touch that flower, I am not merely touching that flower. I am touching infinity. That little flower existed long before there were human beings on this earth. It will continue to exist for thousands, yes, millions of years to come.
The rapid growth of industry, the ever increasing population and the imperative need for a more varied, wholesome and nourishing foodstuff makes it all the more necessary to exhaust every means at our command to fill the empty dinner pail, enrich our soils, bring greater wealth and influence to our beautiful South land, which is synonymous to a healthy, happy and contented people.
Never a day passes but that I do myself the honor to commune with some of nature's varied forms.
My work is that of keeping every operation down (in size) so that the farmer and the man farthest down can get hold of it.
I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets . . .
More and more as we come closer and closer in touch with nature and its teachings are we able to see the Divine and are therefore fitted to interpret correctly the various languages spoken by all forms of nature about us.
The beating on the tail of the snake may stop his progress a little, but the more vital parts must be struck before his poisonous death-dealing venom will be wiped out.
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. (Quote Meaning)
Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you. You learn to talk to them.
A life that stood out as a gospel of self-forgetting service. He could have added fortune to fame but caring for neither he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world. The centre of his world was the south where he was born in slavery some 79 years ago and where he did his work as a creative scientist.
He who puts a product upon the market as it demands, controls that market, regardless of color. It is simply a survival of the fittest.
Education is understanding relationships.
If you love something enough, it will reveal itself to you.
Let us rejoice at the many unexplored fields in which there is unlimited fame and fortune to the successful explorer . . .
There is a use for almost everything.
― George Washington Carver Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
