The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
JAMES BALDWINThose 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.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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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.
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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
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Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.
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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
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Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
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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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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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Love was a country he knew nothing about.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.
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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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Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
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Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
JAMES BALDWIN