Josephine Johnson Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

The earth was overwhelmed with beauty and indifferent to it, and I went with a heart ready to crack for its unbearable loveliness.

Josephine Johnson
I am sick of war. Every woman of my generation is sick of war. Fifty years of war. Wars rumored, wars beginning, wars fought, wars ending, wars paid for, wars endured.

Josephine Johnson
I cannot believe this is the end. Nor can I believe that death is more than the blindness of those living. And if this is only the consolation of a heart in its necessity, or that easy faith born of despair, it does not matter, since it gives us courage somehow to face the mornings. Which is as much as the heart can ask at times.

Josephine Johnson
You can't be a little bit saintly any more than you can be a little bit pregnant.

Josephine Johnson
Love and fear increase together with a precision almost mathematical: the greater the love is then the greater the fear is.

Josephine Johnson
Freedom is no guarantee of anything. It is only defined today by what it is not. What it is takes forms strange and of infinite variety — bizarre as in a masquerade.

Josephine Johnson
The woods seemed all answer and healing and more than enough to live for...

Josephine Johnson
The question we do not see when we are young is whether we own pride or are owned by it.

Josephine Johnson
Lord make me satisfied with small things. Make me content to live on the outside of life. God make me love the rind!

Josephine Johnson
Old people who live too long come to resemble turtles. As though time turned in a curve, and down they go to the reptiles again. Not the little wet naked frog they were born. But the tortoise. Cold eyes, sagging circles of skin, the nose becomes beak. The shell of sleep.

Josephine Johnson
Things that have cost more than they're worth leave a bitter taste. A taste of salt and sweat.

Josephine Johnson
Everything drops away, comes to be unimportant in the dark. It's like sleep almost. A freedom from self, from ugliness...

Josephine Johnson
Pacifists lead a lonely life. Not even gathering together can take the place of that vast, warm sun of approval that is shed on motherhood, on law-abiding, on killing, and on making money. Someday will we come into our own? Well, motherhood may move into the shade. Law-abiding is going through a trauma. But killing and making money are good for a long, long time.

Josephine Johnson