But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form. James Weldon Johnson More Quotes by James Weldon Johnson More Quotes From James Weldon Johnson 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 new-beginnings encouraging inspirational Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst. James Weldon Johnson able race should 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 voice sea sky The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them. James Weldon Johnson white country people This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen. James Weldon Johnson diversity justice country It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient. James Weldon Johnson inconvenient disgrace black 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 black-history tears blood Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God. James Weldon Johnson god men hands 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 greatness mean art And God stepped out on space, and He looked around and said: I'm lonely - I'll make me a world. James Weldon Johnson space lonely world 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 It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. James Weldon Johnson honest strange people ...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 doe running past Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune. James Weldon Johnson philosopher stones work 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 fighting law spring 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 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 heart running 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 battle soul today ...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 evil civilization 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 burning race people
