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 BALDWINIf 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.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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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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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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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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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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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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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
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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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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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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 world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
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No man is a devil in his own mind.
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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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Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.
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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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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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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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Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.
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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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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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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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It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
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The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.
JAMES BALDWIN