Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
JAMES BALDWINTo be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
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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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I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
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If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.
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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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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
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You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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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 are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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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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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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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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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.
JAMES BALDWIN