John Lewis Quotes

49 quotes in 902 categories

• The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.
• I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956 with my brothers and sisters and first cousins, I was only 16 years old, we…
• We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law,…
• I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living.
• I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual…
• We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.
• Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.
• Ornette Coleman is doing the only really new thing in jazz since the innovations in the mid-forties of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and those of…
• When I was 15 years old in the tenth grade, I heard Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, when I was 18, I met…
• If you're not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take that long hard look and just believe that if your…
• We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a…
• You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe. You have to have courage, raw courage.
• When people tell me nothing has changed, I say come walk in my shoes and I will show you change.
• If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it.
• When I was a student, I studied philosophy and religion. I talked about being patient. Some people say I was too hopeful, too optimistic, but…
• If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what…
• My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.
• The government, both state and federal, has a duty to be reasonable and accommodating.
• To make it hard, to make it difficult almost impossible for people to cast a vote is not in keeping with the democratic process.
• I say to people today, 'You must be prepared if you believe in something. If you believe in something, you have to go for it.…

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