The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
JAMES BALDWINPeople 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.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.
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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 astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.
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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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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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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.
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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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When you’re writing you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know.
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Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.
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People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love.
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If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.
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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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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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Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
JAMES BALDWIN