The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
JAMES BALDWINIt 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.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
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Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
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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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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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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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There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
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Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
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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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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
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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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The impossible is the least that one can demand.
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I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
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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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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
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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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Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.
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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.
JAMES BALDWIN