Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.
JAMES BALDWINThe role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.
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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
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The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.
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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.
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You write in order to change the world, if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
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People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
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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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If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.
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I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.
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The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.
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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 most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
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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 who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
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Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
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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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It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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Those kids aren’t dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don’t get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.
JAMES BALDWIN