James Weldon Johnson Quotes

Quotes about:

• You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Inspirational, Encouraging, New Beginnings

  128 Copy quote

• Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Race, Able, Should

  James Weldon Johnson (2011). “The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson”, p.174, Modern Library

  67 Copy quote

• Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Sea, Sky, Voice

  James Weldon Johnson (2011). “The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson”, p.227, Modern Library

  55 Copy quote

• This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Country, Justice, Diversity

  James Weldon Johnson (2004). “Writings”

  53 Copy quote

• Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.

  James Weldon Johnson

  God, Men, Hands

  "The Prodigal Son" l. 2 (1927)

  49 Copy quote

• It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Black, Disgrace, Inconvenient

  James Weldon Johnson (2012). “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.72, Courier Corporation

  49 Copy quote

• The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Country, White, People

  James Weldon Johnson (2012). “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.10, Courier Corporation

  60 Copy quote

• We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Blood, Black History, Tears

  Song: Lift Every Voice and Sing

  48 Copy quote

• A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced.... No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Art, Mean, Greatness

  42 Copy quote

• Make yourself as happy as possible, and try to make those happy whose lives come in touch with yours. But to attempt to right the wrongs and cease the sufferings of the world in general is a waste of effort.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Effort, Suffering, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• And God stepped out on space, and He looked around and said: I'm lonely - I'll make me a world.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Lonely, Space, World

  "The Creation" l. 1 (1927)

  37 Copy quote

• It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.

  James Weldon Johnson

  People, Strange, Honest

  James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995). “The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays”, p.284, Oxford University Press on Demand

  41 Copy quote

• When one has seen something of the world and human nature, one must conclude, after all, that between people in like stations of life there is very little difference the world over.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Differences, People, World

  James Weldon Johnson (2012). “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.40, Courier Corporation

  28 Copy quote

• The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul; later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning; and today it is being fought out over his social recognition.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Soul, Battle, Today

  James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995). “The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays”, p.304, Oxford University Press on Demand

  16 Copy quote

• Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Work, Stones, Philosopher

  27 Copy quote

• I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Spring, Fighting, Law

  James Weldon Johnson, “Brothers”

  27 Copy quote

• Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Music, Running, Heart

  James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995). “The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays”, p.315, Oxford University Press on Demand

  25 Copy quote

• ...evil is a force and, like the physical and chemical forces, we cannot annihilate it; we may only change its form. We light upon one evil and hit it with all the might of our civilization, but only succeed in scattering it into a dozen of other forms

  James Weldon Johnson

  Light, Civilization, Evil

  James Weldon Johnson (2012). “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.84, Courier Corporation

  23 Copy quote

• I do not see how a people that can find in its conscience any excuse whatever for slowly burning to death a human being, or for tolerating such an act, can be entrusted with the salvation of a race.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Race, People, Burning

  James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995). “The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays”, p.352, Oxford University Press on Demand

  23 Copy quote

• Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Song, Religious, Heart

  James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995). “The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays”, p.349, Oxford University Press on Demand

  52 Copy quote

• ...one of the best things about running is that no matter how fast you've run in the past, running fast in the future does not come easily or with any guarantees.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Running, Past, Doe

  14 Copy quote

• This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Baby, Dust, Clay

  James Weldon Johnson (2000). “Complete Poems”, p.17, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

• It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Music, May, Characteristics

  James Weldon Johnson “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, W. W. Norton & Company

  11 Copy quote

• In the life of everyone there is a limited number of experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped there with a die; and in the long years after, they can be called up in detail, and every emotion that was stirred by them can be lived through anew; these are the tragedies of life.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Memories, Years, Numbers

  Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Lydia Maria Child (2017). “Slavery: Not Forgiven, Never Forgotten – The Most Powerful Slave Narratives, Historical Documents & Influential Novels: The Underground Railroad, Memoirs of Frederick Douglass, 12 Years a Slave, Uncle Tom's Cabin, History of Abolitionism, Lynch Law, Civil Rights Acts, New Amendments and much more”, p.1455, e-artnow

  19 Copy quote

• My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that after all I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage

  James Weldon Johnson

  Dream, Children, Ambition

  James Weldon Johnson (2009). “James Weldon Johnson: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.199, ReadHowYouWant.com

  24 Copy quote

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