A devotion to humanity is… too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.
JAMES A. BALDWINRemember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you’re afraid of the other side of the coin — to love and be loved.
More James A. Baldwin Quotes
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Drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.
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When the South has trouble with its Negroes – when the Negroes refuse to remain in their “place” – it blames “outside agitators” and “Northern interference.” When the nation has trouble with the Northern Negro, it blames the Kremlin.
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A man’s balance depends on the weight he carries between his legs.
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The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
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There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.
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If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
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Hatred destroys the person who hates.
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There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
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It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.
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And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.
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You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.
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Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence, and therefore is not susceptible to any arguments whatsoever.
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The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.
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Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.
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You write in order to change the world.
JAMES A. BALDWIN