George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver lived during the late 19th and early 20th century (1864-1943). Carver was a lover of nature, but more importantly, was a lover of God. Carver graduated from Iowa State Agricultural Collage — now Iowa State University — with a master’s degree, and went on the teach at Tuskegee Institute — now Tuskegee University — for 47 years.
Carver never brought a book into his lab, but always relied on the Lord to reveal the required knowledge to him. Carver spent his life researching and developing techniques and products to help farmers. He urged crop rotation: planting legumes or sweet potatoes as a technique to restore nitrogen depleted soil. He invented many useful products that could be produced by these crops: dyes, wood fillers, candies, flours, and many more. He fervently held that Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue the art of science. He also believed that when one spent time in nature, only then “are we able to see the Divine”. After complications from a fall, Carver went home to be with the Lord on January 5th, 1943.
Quotes by George Washington Carver
God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving something behind.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
In these strenuous times, we are likely to become morbid and look constantly on the dark side of life, and spend entirely too much time considering and brooding over what we can’t do, rather than what we can do, and instead of growing morose and despondent over opportunities either real or imaginary that are shut from us, let us rejoice at the many unexplored fields in which there is unlimited fame and fortune to the successful explorer and upon which there is no color line; simply the survival of the fittest.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible, ‘In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.’” (Proverbs 3:6)
– George Washington Carver
Without my Savior, I am nothing.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
If you listen carefully enough to anything, it will talk to you.
– George Washington Carver
Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.
– George Washington Carver
There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation – veneer isn’t worth anything.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
I know that my Redeemer lives. Thank God I love humanity, complexion doesn’t interest me one single a bit.
– George Washington Carver
My prayers seem to be more of an attitude than anything else. I indulge in very little lip service, but ask the Great Creator silently, daily, and often many times a day, to permit me to speak to Him through the three great Kingdoms of the world which He has created – the animal, mineral, and vegetable Kingdoms – to understand their relations to each other, and our relations to them and to the Great God who made all of us. I ask Him daily and often momently to give me wisdom, understanding, and bodily strength to do His will; hence I am asking and receiving all the time.
– George Washington Carver
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
My purpose alone must be God’s purpose.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
Do what you can, with what you have and do it now!
– George Washington Carver
When I was young, I said to God, “God, tell me the mystery of the universe.” But God answered, “That knowledge is reserved 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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
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.
– George Washington Carver
