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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

James Baldwin

Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
JAMES BALDWIN

Happiness Inspirational Joy Life Sad Sorrow Teaching Trust
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Consicious I Love You Love Lover Role
Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
JAMES BALDWIN

Destroy Failure Hate Hatred Law Man
No man is a devil in his own mind.
JAMES BALDWIN

Deep Devil Human Man Mind One Liner
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Beginning Consicious Education Paradox Society
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Bread Float Human People Poison Surprise Water
Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.
JAMES BALDWIN

Colour Human Naked Sex
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Deal Fear Hate Imagination Pain People Reason
Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Believe Deserve Desire Dreamss Event Love Wish
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Earth Simplicity Sun Sunrise Sunset Time Tragic Turn
Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
JAMES BALDWIN

Born Cease Generation Responsible Witness
People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
JAMES BALDWIN

History Hurt One Liner Past People Trapped
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

Happen History Million Past People
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Concept God Love Religion Time Validity
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Claim Earth Equality God Men Sight Soul
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Allow Lead Life Live Pay People
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Beautiful History Terrible
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
JAMES BALDWIN

Book Pain Read
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Breakup World Change Identity Real Safety
True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one’s life.
JAMES BALDWIN

Destroy Fever Hurt Life Love Lovers Mistake Passion Rebel True
It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.
JAMES BALDWIN

Mirror People Person Truth
All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Hear Listen Music One Liner People
Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
JAMES BALDWIN

Battle Beginning Grow Love Thinking War
The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.
JAMES BALDWIN

According Change People Person Reality World
People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love.
JAMES BALDWIN

Disappointment Hurt Limb Love Mercy People
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 BALDWIN

Children Kid School Slave Smart Teaching
The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.
JAMES BALDWIN

Situation Threat Victim Women

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

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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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