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.
JAMES BALDWINTo be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
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I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
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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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If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
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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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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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People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
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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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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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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
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It is easy to proclaim all souls equal in the sight of God; it is hard to make men equal on earth in the sight of men.
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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.
JAMES BALDWIN -
There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
JAMES BALDWIN