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People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

James Baldwin

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
JAMES BALDWIN

Destroy Failure Hate Hatred Law Man
There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
JAMES BALDWIN

Pain People Suffering
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
JAMES BALDWIN

Courage Inspirational Leave Life World
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Bread Effort Force Life Love Present Rejoice Respect Sensual
If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.
JAMES BALDWIN

Allow Citizen Destroy Permit Portion Society
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
JAMES BALDWIN

Allow Lead Life Live Pay People
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
JAMES BALDWIN

Art Hide Purpose
Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
JAMES BALDWIN

Affliction Crutch Desire Frightened Release
Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
JAMES BALDWIN

Battle Beginning Grow Love Thinking War
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Beautiful History Terrible
Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
JAMES BALDWIN

Attachment Condition Home One Liner Peace Place
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
JAMES BALDWIN

Book Pain Read
People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love.
JAMES BALDWIN

Disappointment Hurt Limb Love Mercy People
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
JAMES BALDWIN

Consicious Country Negro Reative Time
I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
JAMES BALDWIN

Goodness Honesty Man One Liner Self Love Writing
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

Believe Endure Humanity Inferior Remember

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

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People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

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Popular Authors

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