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 BALDWINNakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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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.
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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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It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
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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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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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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 one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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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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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
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Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
JAMES BALDWIN