Top 43 John Lewis Quotes
#1. Races don't fall in love, genders don't fall in love: Individuals fall in love. We all should be free to marry the person that we love.
John Lewis
#2. When people tell me nothing has changed, I say come walk in my shoes and I will show you change.
John Lewis
#3. My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble, not to make any noise.
John Lewis
#4. Now we have black and white elected officials working together. Today, we have gone beyond just passing laws. Now we have to create a sense that we are one community, one family. Really, we are the American family.
John Lewis
#5. We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.
John Lewis
#7. The government, both state and federal, has a duty to be reasonable and accommodating.
John Lewis
#8. In the past the great majority of minority voters, in Ohio and other places that means African American voters, cast a large percentage of their votes during the early voting process.
John Lewis
#9. Every generation leaves behind a legacy. What that legacy will be is determined by the people of that generation. What legacy do you want to leave behind?
John Lewis
#10. Even in the civil rights movement, there were so many unbelievable women. They never, ever received the credit that they should have received. They did all of the, and I cannot say it, they did all of the dirty work. Hard work.
John Lewis
#11. 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.
John Lewis
#12. You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe. You have to have courage, raw courage.
John Lewis
#13. I would say the country is a different country. It is a better country. The signs I saw when I was growing up are gone and they will not return. In many ways the walls of segregation have been torn down.
John Lewis
#14. I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living.
John Lewis
#15. You have to have the capacity and the ability to take what people did, and how they did it, and forgive them and move on.
John Lewis
#16. Some people know Rosa Parks, they know Daisy Bates in Arkansas, but every ... Ruby Doris Smith, Diane Nash, countless individuals.
John Lewis
#17. Who gets the bird, the hunter or the dog?
John Lewis
#18. If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it.
John Lewis
#19. We built a coalition of conscience, and that we can do it again, and we can go forward, and help redeem the soul of America.
John Lewis
#20. The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.
John Lewis
#21. Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet.
John Lewis
#22. In terms of our elected officials, I think we need to ask...: How far should we go with our need to know before we completely veer off into the personal and the private and leave behind any chance of having a legitimate debate or discussion or discourse about the issues at hand?
John Lewis
#23. Some people think that [it was] Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea to have a boycott. It was a black woman, a teacher, who said we should boycott the buses. You had people like Fannie Lou Hamer; Delta, Mississippi.
John Lewis
#24. I don't have any extraordinary gifts. I'm just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.
John Lewis
#25. I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe that we have an obligation to condemn speech that is racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, or hateful.
John Lewis
#26. 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. As individuals, we may not live to see the end.'
John Lewis
#27. To make it hard, to make it difficult almost impossible for people to cast a vote is not in keeping with the democratic process.
John Lewis
#28. My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.
John Lewis
#29. [O]ur revolt was as much against the traditional black leadership structure as it was against segregation and discrimination.
John Lewis
#30. 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 you have to be optimistic just in keeping with the philosophy of non-violence.
John Lewis
#31. I think all Americans should be hopeful, and try to be optimistic.
John Lewis
#32. 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 Thelonious Monk
John Lewis
#33. The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.
John Lewis
#34. The documented incidences of voter fraud are very rare, yet throughout the country, forces have mobilized in over 30 states to stop it. These efforts are very partisan.
John Lewis
#35. You cannot give up - you have to be persistent and keep pushing, and press on.
John Lewis
#36. I loved going to the library. It was the first time I ever saw Black newspapers and magazines like JET, Ebony, the Baltimore Afro-American, or the Chicago Defender. And I'll never forget my librarian.
John Lewis
#37. The book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, I read it when I was about 17-and-a-half or 18. It changed my life.
John Lewis
#38. I heard Dr. King speaking on the radio, and it seemed like he was saying, "John Robert Lewis, you too can make a contribution. You can get involved!"
John Lewis
#39. It was not enough to come and listen to a great sermon or message every Sunday morning and be confined to those four walls and those four corners. You had to get out and do something.
John Lewis
#40. It is my hope that people today will see that, in another time, in another period, when we saw the need for people to speak up, to organize, to mobilize, and to do something about injustice, we came together.
John Lewis
#41. When growing up, I saw segregation. I saw racial discrimination. I saw those signs that said white men, colored men. White women, colored women. White waiting. And I didn't like it.
John Lewis
#42. But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.
John Lewis
#43. If you're not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take the long hard look and just believe that if you're consistent, you will succeed.
John Lewis
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