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Who really said it

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them

Written by Booker T. Washington 1856–1915 · educator, orator & founder of the Tuskegee Institute
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Confirmed in Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery (1901), Chapter XI, where he writes: “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.” The line reflects on giving Tuskegee students genuine ownership of their school.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them” Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (1901), Chapter XI

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Provenance

The source

Work
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Chapter
XI — “Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them”
First published
1901 (Doubleday, Page & Co.)
Author
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)

There are no meetings with our students that I enjoy more than these… These meetings, it seems to me, enable me to get at the very heart of all that concerns the school. “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. When I have read of labour troubles between employers and employees, I have often thought that many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their employees…” Up from Slavery, Ch. XI (1901)

From Chapter XI, in Washington’s account of how he treated Tuskegee students as co-owners of the institution.

Read Up from Slavery, Chapter XI (Project Gutenberg)

How we traced it

  • The line appears verbatim in the Project Gutenberg full text of Up from Slavery: “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.”
  • Wikiquote lists it among sourced quotations, citing Up from Slavery (1901), Chapter XI — “Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them.”
  • The most-shared internet version — “Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him” — softly rewords Washington’s original “Few things help… responsibility upon him.”
Public domain

Up from Slavery was first published in 1901, well before 1931, so the book and this sentence are in the public domain in the United States.

Fact-check

A genuine quote — but usually slightly misquoted

The attribution to Booker T. Washington is correct and well sourced. What circulates online is usually a lightly reworded version of what he actually wrote.

Booker T. Washington Misquoted

Washington’s original sentence reads “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him”; the popular quote-site version inserts “can” and swaps “upon” for “on” (“Few things can help… responsibility on him”).

Booker T. Washington Truncated

The line is almost always quoted without its second half. In the book it continues: “…and to let him know that you trust him,” which is the point Washington was actually making about the Tuskegee students.

The thought — and very nearly the exact words — are genuinely Washington’s, from Up from Slavery, Chapter XI (1901).

Context

Why he wrote it

Washington placed the line in a passage about how he ran the Tuskegee Institute. He describes inviting students, two or three times a year, to write him letters criticizing or making suggestions about the school, and holding “heart-to-heart” chapel talks — his way of making them feel they co-owned the institution rather than merely attended it.

He immediately generalizes the idea to industry, arguing that many “strikes and similar disturbances” between employers and employees could be avoided if employers got “nearer to their employees… and letting them feel that the interests of the two are the same.”

“Every individual responds to confidence.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Leadership Growth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Up from Slavery — full textgutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg’s complete 1901 text; the quote is in Chapter XI.
Booker T. Washingtonen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations, citing this line to Up from Slavery, Ch. XI.
Up from Slavery (Documenting the American South)docsouth.unc.edu

UNC’s scholarly digital edition of the full autobiography.
Booker T. Washingtonen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the educator and Tuskegee founder.
Up from Slavery (Lit2Go)etc.usf.edu

Chapter-by-chapter reading edition of the autobiography.

About the author

About Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

1856–1915 · Educator, orator & founder of the Tuskegee Institute

Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in Virginia and rose to become the most prominent Black educator and public figure in turn-of-the-century America. In 1881 he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, which he built into a leading school for training Black teachers and tradespeople. His 1901 autobiography Up from Slavery became one of the most widely read American memoirs of its era.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1901), Chapter XI, “Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them.”

MLA (9th ed.)

Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1901.

APA (7th ed.)

Washington, B. T. (1901). Up from slavery: An autobiography. Doubleday, Page & Co.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/few-things-help-an-individual-more-than-to-place

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