Those kids aren’t dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don’t get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.
JAMES BALDWINTrust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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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.
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Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.
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Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.
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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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Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.
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Love was a country he knew nothing about.
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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
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All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.
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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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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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There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
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People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love.
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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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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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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 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.
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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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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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There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.
JAMES BALDWIN