The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
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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People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
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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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True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one’s life.
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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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The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.
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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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History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.
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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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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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I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
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All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.
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People can cry much easier than they can change.
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Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark.
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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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Youth must be the worst time in anybody’s life.
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There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.
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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
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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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You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.
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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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Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
JAMES BALDWIN