James Weldon Johnson Quotes

James Weldon Johnson's lines feel uplifting and lyrical, for those who love god, nature and creation.

41 quotes

1. 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.

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

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

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

5. The glory of the day was in her face, The beauty of the night was in her eyes.

6. It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristic.

7. How would you have us, as we are? Or sinking 'neath the load we bear? Our eyes fixed forward on a star? Or gazing empty at despair?

8. O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How, in your darkness, did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrels' lyre?

9. Whose starward eye Saw chariot 'swing low'? And who was he That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh, 'Nobody knows de trouble I see'?

10. You sang far better than you knew; the songs That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed Still live,-but more than this to you belongs: You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.

11. Father, Father Abraham, To-day look on us from above; On us, the offspring of thy faith, The children of thy Christ-like love.

12. 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.

13. Eternities before the first-born day, Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame, Calm Night, the everlasting and the same, A brooding mother over chaos lay.

14. The glory of the day was in her face, The beauty of the night was in her eyes. And over all her loveliness, the grace Of Morning blushing in the early skies.

15. And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said,- 'O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.'

16. Some men enjoy the constant strife Of days with work and worry rife, But that is not my dream of life: I think such men are crazy. For me, a life with worries few, A job of nothing much to do, Just pelf enough to see me through: I fear that I am lazy.

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

18. So God stepped over to the edge of the world And He spat out the seven seas; He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed; He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled; And the waters above the earth came down, The cooling waters came down.

19. And God smiled again, And the rainbow appeared, And curled itself around his shoulder.

20. With his head in his hands, God thought and thought, Till he thought: I'll make me a man!

21. 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.

22. Find Sister Caroline... And she's tired- She's weary- Go down, Death, and bring her to me.

23. Young man-Young man-Your arm's too short to box with God.

24. There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend.

28. Shortly after this I was made a member of the boys choir, it being found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the singing very much.

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

30. My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have another woman helping her.

31. Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such; but for certain individuals they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways.

32. Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. My luck at the gambling table was varied; sometimes I was fifty to a hundred dollars ahead, and at other times I had to borrow money from my fellow workmen to settle my room rent and pay for my meals.

37. And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books.

38. Washington shows the Negro not only at his best, but also at his worst.

39. The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice.

40. 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.

41. Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville.