J. J. Johnson Quotes

Your world is as big as you make it.

We're on the verge of a financial collapse unless we balance the budget, and that means some really, really tough decisions.

Always remember that better days are ahead - if not in this life, in the next.

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.

I was always dancing and acrobatics was my specialty.

Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon.

When Jesus performed miracles, he wasn't demonstrating what God can do, but what God can do through a man.

All successes begin with Self-Discipline. It starts with you.

If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.

It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time.

The future is purchased by the present.

He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.

I am waiting for the day when I will see you again and hold your soft hands, touch your sweet lips and hug you tight so that you will never leave me again.

Oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments and putting better in their place.

When emulation leads us to strive for self-elevation by merit alone, and not by belittling another, then it is one of the grandest possible incentives to action.

The job, of course, will never be finished. For a nation, as for an individual, education is a perpetually unfinished journey, a continuing process of discovery.

Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.

We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

The blues is a low down achin' chill.

Back in those early days when I began my apprenticeship as a poet, I also tried to voice our anger, spirit of defiance and resistance in a Jamaican poetic idiom.

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.

The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.

The funny thing about stop signs is that they're also start signs.

The second advantage claimed for naturalism is that it is equivalent to rationality, because it assumes a model of reality in which all events are in principle accessible to scientific investigation.

I love the 3D revolution. I love the technology today that continues to push the envelope, continues break the new ground, and continues to raise the bar.

I have never, ever sought validation from the arbiters of British poetic taste.

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

Once you have a disease like cancer, you look at life a bit differently. Some things that were important no longer seem as important as they were.

The more I read my poems, the more I find out about them. I still read them with the same passion I felt when I wrote them as a young man.

I know how important it is to have people who believe in you even when you don't believe in yourself.

To succeed, one must be creative and persistent.

Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone's achievement.

I have a chaperone everywhere I go - my mom.

The wisdom's in the trees not the glass windows.

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.

The vast waterfall of history pours down, and a few obituarists fill teacups with the stories.

Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.

Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth

Work hard. And have patience. Because no matter who you are, you're going to get hurt in your career and you have to be patient to get through the injuries.

The walk of Faith is to live according to the revelation we have received, in the midst of the mysteries we can't explain.

Its better to get smart than to get mad. I try not to get so insulted that I will not take advantage of an opportunity to persuade people to change their minds.

The resolution of the combat is seldom equal to the vehemence of the charge.

Where there is emulation, there will be vanity; where there is vanity, there will be folly.

love's just a waste of energy and life's just a waste of time so why don't we get together we could waste everything tonight

My approach to gymnastics in Beijing was heavily based on the amount of difficulty I could do.

He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.

I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it

Live. Love. Smile. Hug. Laugh. Dream. Do. Create. Have fun. Be intense. Be audacious. Be unreasonable. Act impeccably. Breathe. Be you. Be different.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history.