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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.

James Baldwin

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Hear Listen Music One Liner People
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
JAMES BALDWIN

Earth Simplicity Sun Sunrise Sunset Time Tragic Turn
If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody
JAMES BALDWIN

Cruel Death Die Live Love
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 BALDWIN

Pain People Suffering
People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
JAMES BALDWIN

Friendship Invent Love Lover Parents People Unhappiness
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Deal Fear Hate Imagination Pain People Reason
Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.
JAMES BALDWIN

Colour Human Naked Sex
The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.
JAMES BALDWIN

Art Force Reality Represent
The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
JAMES BALDWIN

Cease Each Other Hold Light Moments Sea
No man is a devil in his own mind.
JAMES BALDWIN

Deep Devil Human Man Mind One Liner
I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.
JAMES BALDWIN

Circumstances History Myself Time
Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
JAMES BALDWIN

Affliction Crutch Desire Frightened Release
I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
JAMES BALDWIN

Book One Liner Wonder World
Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
JAMES BALDWIN

Born Change Inspirational Shock State
Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.
JAMES BALDWIN

Black Lives Matter Colour Human One Liner Politics Reality
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.
JAMES BALDWIN

Breakup World Change Identity Real Safety

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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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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Popular Authors

More James Baldwin Quotes