Katherine Johnson was born as Katherine Coleman in 1918 in the state of West Virginia. She was a known American mathematician that worked for NASA and calculated many flight paths while working for the U.S. space program. Her work actually was involved in sending astronauts to the moon.
As a child, her intelligence didn’t go unnoticed, when she was 10 years old she began high school. At age 18, Katherine Coleman graduated West Virginia State College in 1937 with the highest honours in mathematics and French.
She married a man named James Goble, he died in 1956. In 1959 she married James Johnson, and after that she was known as Katherine Johnson. While working for NASA, she was the first woman from her division to receive credit for a research paper she had co-written in 1960.
She authored and co authored at least 26 research reports throughout her career. Johnson played a very important role in some of NASA’s projects, such as the Mercury Project (1961-1963). She also calculated paths for spacecrafts such as ‘Freedom 7’ (1961).
Katherine Johnson retired from NASA in 1986, but received many awards and honours for her work, NASA even named a building Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility in 2016. She passed away at 101 years old in February of 2020.
Katherine Johnson Quotes
- “We needed to be assertive as women in those days – assertive and aggressive – and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I like to learn. That’s an art and a science.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I’m always interested in learning something new.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Even as a professional in an integrated world, I had been the only black woman in enough drawing rooms and boardrooms to have an inkling of the chutzpah it took for an African American woman in a segregated southern workplace to tell her bosses she was sure her calculations would put a man on the Moon.” – Katherine Johnson
- “There’s nothing to it; I was just doing my job.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Give credit to everyone who helped, I didn’t do anything alone.” – Katherine Johnson
- “There are only two conditions right or wrong in math” – Katherine Johnson
- “Girls are capable of doing everything men are capable of doing. Sometimes they have more imagination than men.” – Katherine Johnson
- “In math, you’re either right or you’re wrong.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I was excited at something new, always liked something new, but give credit to everybody who helped. I didn’t do anything alone but try to go to the root of the question and succeeded there.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Sometimes I could see that others in the class did not understand what W.W. Schieffelin Claytor was teaching. So I would ask questions to help them. He’d tell me that I should know the answer, and I finally had to tell him that I did know the answer, but the other students did not. I could tell.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Once you took the first step, anything was possible.” – Katherine Johnson
- “We had to determine so much. Where you were, where the Moon would be and how fast the astronauts were going.” – Katherine Johnson
- “You are no superior not inferior even if you are rich and you are poor” – Katherine Johnson
- “Like what you do, and then you will do your best.” – Katherine Johnson
- “When a space program came along I just happened to be working with guys and when they had briefings I asked permission to go, and they said the girls don’t usually go. And I said, well, is there a law? They said no and then my boss said ‘let her go’.” – Katherine Johnson
- “The women did what they were told to do. They didn’t ask questions or take the task any further. I asked questions; I wanted to know why. They got used to me asking questions and being the only woman there.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Men don’t pay attention to small things.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I liked working with smart people.” – Katherine Johnson
- “We always worked as a team. It’s never just one person.” – Katherine Johnson
- “You must always get the love for something” – Katherine Johnson
- “The main thing I liked what I was doing, I liked work. I liked the stars and stories we were telling, and it was a joy to contribute to the literature work that was going to be coming out. But little did I think it would go this far.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Everything was so new, the whole idea of going into space was new and daring. There were no textbooks, so we had to write them.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Take all the courses in your curriculum. Do the research. Ask questions. Find someone doing what you are interested in! Be curious!” – Katherine Johnson
- “Everything is physics and math.” – Katherine Johnson
- “There has been a lifeguard shortage for a while, so it’s good that young people are into it.” – Katherine Johnson
- “We put in some long hours at times, and I had three children at home. But they were very responsible, and I had family and friends who helped look after them.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I was always around people who were learning something. I liked to learn.” – Katherine Johnson
- “When you go ahead it’s special when it was impossible” – Katherine Johnson
- “Many professors tell you that you’d be good at this or that, but they don’t always help you with that career path.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I see a picture right now that’s not parallel, so I’m going to go straighten it. Things must be in order.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I was just excited to have challenging work to do and smart people to work with.” – Katherine Johnson
- “We’re really young, so there’s a lot of room for growth. If these girls stay together and work together during the off-season they will grow as a team.” – Katherine Johnson
- “If you want to know you ask a question. There’s no such thing as a dumb question, it’s dumb if you don’t ask it.” – Katherine Johnson
- “My colleagues and I were committed to the work. We found different ways to deal with the segregation.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Experiment for the basket was awesome but I learned something” – Katherine Johnson
- “We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I’ll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I found what I was looking for at Langley. This was what a research mathematician did. I went to work every day for 33 years happy. Never did I get up and say I don’t want to go to work.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I think it’s important that you learn the background of what you’re working on and how to do it, and you’ll get the right answer.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I believed I was where I was supposed to be.” – Katherine Johnson
- “For appall mission, I feel proud. It was a space journey and I made paths easy” – Katherine Johnson
- “I was excited at something new, always liked something new, but give credit to everybody who helped. I didn’t do anything alone but try to go to the root of the question and succeeded there.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I don’t have a feeling of inferiority. Never had. I’m as good as anybody, but no better.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I had a very, very interesting childhood, but, oh my, education was the primary focus in our family.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I like to work problems. If you do your best, nobody can ask you to do it over again. I never had to repeat what I did.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I had a question every time for what I have been thinking when there is a question why there are girls to mention and ask” – Katherine Johnson
- “I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed… anything that could be counted, I did.” – Katherine Johnson
- “We needed to be assertive as women in those days, assertive and aggressive, and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be.” – Katherine Johnson
- “I felt most proud on the success of the Apollo mission.” – Katherine Johnson
- “They needed information and I had it, and it didn’t matter that I found it. At the time, it was just a question and an answer.” – Katherine Johnson
- “My interest was the computer I still calculate like it I don’t need to transfer it to computer” – Katherine Johnson
- “John Glenn’s life will long be remembered for his time in space, his courage, and his service to all Americans.”
- “You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you.”
- “Our teachers made such a difference – all my teachers and professors were very supportive and nurturing.” – Katherine Johnson
- “All jobs are important to somebody. They had to be important to somebody. My theory is, do the best you can all the time. No fooling around.” – Katherine Johnson
- “Proud to do things right now you are doing and feel happy for those you will get tomorrow” – Katherine Johnson
- “Go see ‘Hidden Figures,’ and take a young person! It will give a more positive outlook on what is possible if you work hard, do your best, and are prepared.”
- “If you lose curiosity then you stop learning.” – Katherine Johnson
Related: Dick Gregory’s Best Quotes
Katherine Johnson Video
According to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine: “She was an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten”
NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson died at the age of 101. Johnson was part of a group of African-American women who worked on critical mathematical calculations in the early days of human spaceflight, as chronicled in the best-selling book and hit movie Hidden Figures.
Related: Quotes to Celebrate Black History Month
Summary
Katherine Johnson is not only an inspiration to people in her field of work, but also to African American women because she was one of three that were chosen to enroll in a graduate program at West Virginia State College in 1939.
She made her impact on the world and is a motivation to women, and mathematicians everywhere. Using some of her quotes will leave you inspired, motivated and moved.
Finally, see Alan Turing’s most interesting quotes
Image Credit: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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