There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
JAMES BALDWINIf I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
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People 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.
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The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.
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Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
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If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.
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History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.
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Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.
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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.
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The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.
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The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
JAMES BALDWIN -
Everybody’s journey is individual.
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It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
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I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.
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Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one’s life.
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Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
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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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Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark.
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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
JAMES BALDWIN