The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
JAMES BALDWINNothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
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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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The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.
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Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
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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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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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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.
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Love was a country he knew nothing about.
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Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.
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People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
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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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Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.
JAMES BALDWIN