People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
JAMES BALDWINGenerations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
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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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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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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
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Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
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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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For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for what they become.
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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
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It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
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No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.
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Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity.
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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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It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES BALDWIN