Paul Robeson Quotes

42 Sourced Quotes

In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers — that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks … Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen.

Paul Robeson
Films make me into some cheap turn... You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top.

Paul Robeson
You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too.

Paul Robeson
When I sang my American folk melodies in Budapest, Prague, Tiflis, Moscow, Oslo, or the Hebrides or on the Spanish front, the people understood and wept or rejoiced with the spirit of the songs. I found that where forces have been the same, whether people weave, build, pick cotton, or dig in the mine, they understand each other in the common language of work, suffering, and protest.

Paul Robeson
As Americans, preserving the best of our traditions, we have the right- nay the duty-to fight for participation in the forward march of humanity

Paul Robeson
You are the non-patriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Paul Robeson
If the United States and the United Nations truly want peace and security let them fulfill the hopes of the common people everywhere – let them work together to accomplish on a worldwide scale, precisely the kind of democratic association of free people which characterizes the Soviet Union today.

Paul Robeson
I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom

Paul Robeson
One does not need a very long racial memory to loose on oneself in such a part … As I act, civilization falls away from me. My plight becomes real, the horrors terrible facts. I feel the terror of the slave mart, the degradation of man bought and sold into slavery. Well, I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory.

Paul Robeson
In my music, my plays, my films, I want to carry always this central idea: to be African.

Paul Robeson
Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.

Paul Robeson
The talents of an artist, small or great, are God-given. They've nothing to do with the private person; they're nothing to be proud of. They're just a sacred trust... Having been given, I must give. Man shall not live by bread alone, and what the farmer does I must do. I must feed the people - with my songs.

Paul Robeson