Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
JAMES BALDWINNo one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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No man is a devil in his own mind.
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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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People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
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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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Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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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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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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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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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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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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To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.
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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.
JAMES BALDWIN