To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
JAMES BALDWINTo be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
JAMES BALDWINThe impossible is the least that one can demand.
JAMES BALDWINThe price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
JAMES BALDWINThere are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.
JAMES BALDWINIt is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES BALDWINConfusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.
JAMES BALDWINThe world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
JAMES BALDWINPrecisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
JAMES BALDWINIt is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.
JAMES BALDWINThere are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
JAMES BALDWINPlease try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity.
JAMES BALDWINIt is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
JAMES BALDWINPeople who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
JAMES BALDWINIf a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.
JAMES BALDWINPeople don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love.
JAMES BALDWINNothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
JAMES BALDWIN