Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.
JAMES A. BALDWINThe purpose of education…is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.
More James A. Baldwin Quotes
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At bottom, to be colored means that one has been caught in some utterly unbelievable cosmic joke, a joke so hideous and in such bad taste that it defeats all categories and definitions.
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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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For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for whatthey become.
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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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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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The wretched of the earth do not decide to become extinct, they resolve, on the contrary, to multiply: life is their weapon against life, life is all that they have.
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Hatred destroys the person who hates.
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… every human being is an unprecedented miracle.
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Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.
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The male cannot bear very much humiliation; and he really cannot bear it, it obliterates him.
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Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence, and therefore is not susceptible to any arguments whatsoever.
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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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You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.
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To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
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It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES A. BALDWIN







