Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.
Source: Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, 1912.
-- James Weldon Johnson, (Jun 17 1871-1938), US poet, diplomat, anthologist; He is noted for his poetry and anthologies of black culture; wrote The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1921.