Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
JAMES BALDWINColour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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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.
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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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People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
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The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.
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Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
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Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
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To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
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Youth must be the worst time in anybody’s life.
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I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
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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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The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.
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I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
JAMES BALDWIN