Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
JAMES BALDWINOur crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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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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Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.
JAMES BALDWIN -
Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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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 are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.
JAMES BALDWIN -
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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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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No man is a devil in his own mind.
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Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
JAMES BALDWIN