It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES A. BALDWINIt is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own: in the face of one’s victim, one sees oneself.
More James A. Baldwin Quotes
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I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.
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A devotion to humanity is… too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.
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The determination to outwit one’s situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.
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It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own: in the face of one’s victim, one sees oneself.
JAMES A. BALDWIN -
The male cannot bear very much humiliation; and he really cannot bear it, it obliterates him.
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There is a ‘sanctity’ involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.
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If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, fire next time.
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For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for whatthey become.
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You write in order to change the world.
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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 writer’s greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.
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You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.
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There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
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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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A man’s balance depends on the weight he carries between his legs.
JAMES A. BALDWIN