If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.
JAMES BALDWINPeople can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
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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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People can cry much easier than they can change.
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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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If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.
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I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.
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Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.
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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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Everybody’s journey is individual.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
JAMES BALDWIN