The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
JAMES BALDWINTrue rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one’s life.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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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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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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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 power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.
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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.
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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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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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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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To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.
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Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
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If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody
JAMES BALDWIN