It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES BALDWINThe world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.
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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.
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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
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To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
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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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Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.
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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.
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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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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.
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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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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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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
JAMES BALDWIN