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"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."
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Exlpore more Ability quotes
"If I drive myself to the brink of my ability, then I don't get stale or bored."
"Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you're lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent's preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it's supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn. If talent's the foundation you rely on, and yet it's so unreliable that you have no idea what's going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?"
"We all have ability. The difference is how we use it."
Explore more quotes by James Weldon Johnson
"There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it."
"I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"In Berlin I especially enjoyed the orchestral concerts, and I attended a large number of them. I formed the acquaintance of a good many musicians, several of whom spoke of my playing in high terms."
"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."
"Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville."
"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."
"It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow tree."
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