If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.
JAMES BALDWINThere is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it.
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People can cry much easier than they can change.
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Youth must be the worst time in anybody’s life.
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The 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.
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You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.
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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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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 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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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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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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To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.
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The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
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Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
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The impossible is the least that one can demand.
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The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.
JAMES BALDWIN