People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
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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There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.
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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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If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.
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No man is a devil in his own mind.
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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
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The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.
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You write in order to change the world, if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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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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No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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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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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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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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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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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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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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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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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.
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The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
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All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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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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Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
JAMES BALDWIN