It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.
JAMES BALDWINYouth must be the worst time in anybody’s life.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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No man is a devil in his own mind.
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Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
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There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.
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The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.
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If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
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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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If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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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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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.
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Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
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There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
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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.
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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 purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.
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Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
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Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
JAMES BALDWIN