The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
JAMES BALDWINPrecisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
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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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Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
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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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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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When you’re writing you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know.
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I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.
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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
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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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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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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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American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
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The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.
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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
JAMES BALDWIN