Top 100 John Legend Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The best way to fight poverty is to empower people through access to quality education.”

— John Legend

Featured in: Education Quotes, Encouraging Quotes for Students

2. “I keep learning, listening, growing and experimenting.”

— John Legend

Featured in: Growth Mindset Quotes, Lifelong Learning Quotes

3. “The future started yesterday, and we’re already late.”

— John Legend

4. “My head’s under water but I’m breathing fine.”

— John Legend

5. “Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections.”

— John Legend

6. “A just society is not one built on fear or repression or vengeance or exclusion, but one built on love. Love for our families. Love for our neighbors. Love for the least among us. Love for those who look different or worship differently. Love for those we don’t even know.”

— John Legend

7. “We’re just ordinary people. We don’t know which way to go.”

— John Legend

8. “Soul is about authenticity. Soul is about finding the things in your life that are real and pure.”

— John Legend

9. “The biggest weapon is to stay peaceful.”

— John Legend

10. “I feel like my job is to make impact, spread love, tell great stories, inspire people, that’s what I am going to do.”

— John Legend

11. “We all must follow a different path to let our light shine, and that’s what makes us so unpredictable and unique.”

— John Legend

12. “You learn so much from taking chances, whether they work out or not. Either way, you can grow from the experience and become stronger and smarter.”

— John Legend

13. “The best training is to play by ear: trial by fire.”

— John Legend

14. “All men should be feminists. If men cared about women’s rights, the world would be a better place.”

— John Legend

15. “Music business is hard. It’s very difficult. And it’s not for everyone. Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin.”

— John Legend

16. “I used to work for a management consulting company, so I dressed differently – business casual, probably a lot of things from Banana Republic. My wardrobe now is definitely more expensive, but I always dress for the occasion.”

— John Legend

17. “I’ve always followed politics, and I think politics is everybody’s business because we’re electing someone who’s going to be making important decisions that will affect all of our lives.”

— John Legend

18. “Some people, you know, should just go to college and do what they do and have a great job and not worry about trying to be famous as a singer. It’s not for everyone.”

— John Legend

19. “I think people relate to the music because I have a sense of empathy, and I think I have a good understanding about relationships, and I talk about them in a real, honest way.”

— John Legend

20. “Sometimes there’s that perfect moment when the crowd, the music, the energy of the room come together in a way that brings me to tears.”

— John Legend

21. “Experience is a great teacher.”

— John Legend

22. “I don’t like going to football games. I like watching them on television. When you go to a game, it’s hard to focus. There’s so much going on, and it’s cold. I’d rather sit and watch it and get replays and commentary.”

— John Legend

23. “London is a good fashion city. They’re a little more daring. There’s the element of the aristocracy, which is always interesting.”

— John Legend

24. “Artists in general never stay in the same place, we keep growing. It’s still you, you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.”

— John Legend

25. “I’m pretty adventurous with food, so I’m not afraid to try anything.”

— John Legend

26. “Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.”

— John Legend

27. “My family is very musical, I was surrounded by it. And from four years old I was the one that asked my mother could I take piano lessons.”

— John Legend

28. “There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.”

— John Legend

29. “I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.”

— John Legend

30. “I only want to be associated with music that is high quality. That’s my main criteria.”

— John Legend

31. “I do believe that part of us ending racism is us seeing each other’s humanity and learning to love each other, even if we look different or worship differently or live differently.”

— John Legend

32. “I wrote the song “Show Me” as a prayer to God asking simple, honest questions about life and death and why there is so much suffering in the world. As I grew with the song I realized I shouldn’t limit these questions solely to God; I should ask those questions of others and of myself.”

— John Legend

33. “I just want it to be timeless and timely at the same time.”

— John Legend

34. “You see all these things that make you feel desperate or sad, but you realize changes can be made, and it doesn’t take a lot of money on our part to make a change in people’s lives.”

— John Legend

35. “Every artist wants some sort of feedback, because you make this music and you hope people love it and you want to hear if they love it and what they love about it, what their favorite song is, what they think the next single should be. I like to hear those things.”

— John Legend

36. “Music business is not for everyone. But if you have it in you, you have that passion, if you have that energy in you that you really want to make something creative and make something that’s going to impact the world, then go for it, do it and don’t let anybody tell you no.”

— John Legend

37. “I thought it would be funny to take a photo in the White House bathroom, I take pictures everywhere I go, but I don’t think I can top that one.”

— John Legend

38. “I’m used to getting sexy sometimes in the lyrics.”

— John Legend

39. “The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It’s about just making great songs. I want most of my album to be in my voice, because it’s my point of view.”

— John Legend

40. “That’s the evergreen nature of a great song. They can be resurrected. They can be covered. They can find new relevance due to changing circumstances in history.”

— John Legend

41. “I know when things feel a little, like, intrusive and when they don’t. I don’t have a lot to hide. But I do sometimes think, don’t share everything.”

— John Legend

42. “You can always find a stray negative comment on the Internet. It’s like everybody loves to put negative comments on the Internet under the cloak of anonymity.”

— John Legend

43. “I like cool jackets – a nice fall or winter coat. You can get a lot of use out of it, and you’ll wear it frequently, so it can really set the tone of your uniform for the season.”

— John Legend

44. “It’s really about making the best music you can make. It’s really about working hard.”

— John Legend

45. “It’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.”

— John Legend

46. “For me, no matter how much money you want to make off of singing, no matter what kind of fame you want to make, achieve, the most important thing to me is making music that you’re proud of, making music that comes from you, comes from an authentic place in you.”

— John Legend

47. “I’m craving more soul, I’m craving more truth, I’m craving more socially – just people that are aware of what’s going on in the world.”

— John Legend

48. “The fun part about collaborating is that you naturally just bounce off each other’s energy and learn off each other.”

— John Legend

49. “I was a busy kid in high school – a little bit of an overachiever, I guess. Prom king was kind of silly, but the rest of the stuff was important to me.”

— John Legend

50. “Now that I’m coming out with my own record people can see I’m a solo artist.”

— John Legend