James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 5

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• It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself.

  James A. Baldwin

  Law, Justice, Humanity

  "Fifth Avenue, Uptown" by James A. Baldwin, www.esquire.com. July 1960.

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• What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn't stay there any longer and had to go somewhere else to make it. That's all. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts. Those who were making it in England, for example, did not get on the Mayflower. That's how the country was settled.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Believe, Hero

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• We can make America what America must become.

  James A. Baldwin

  America

  "How James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time still lights the way towards equality" by Steven W Thrasher, www.theguardian.com. April 4, 2017.

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• People are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks. But an itemized account of the American failure does not console me and it should not console anyone else. That hundreds of thousands of white people are living, in effect, no better than the "niggers" is not a fact to be regarded with complacency. The social and moral bankruptcy suggested by this fact is of the bitterest, most terrifying kind.

  James A. Baldwin

  Order, White, People

  "Fifth Avenue, Uptown" by James A. Baldwin, www.esquire.com. July 1960.

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• I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Positive, Motivational Sports

  57 Copy quote

• You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

  James A. Baldwin

  Writing, Goal, Want

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• Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

  James A. Baldwin

  Heart, Evil, Imagination

  "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy". "Esquire" Magazine, May 1961.

  45 Copy quote

• The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.

  James A. Baldwin

  Past, Long, Horrible

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• To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.

  James A. Baldwin

  Past, Clay, Cracks

  "Letter from a Region in My Mind" by James A. Baldwin, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

  17 Copy quote

• If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Able, Dies

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• All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.

  James A. Baldwin

  People, Music Is, Knows

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• When Americans look out on the world, they see nothing but dark and menacing strangers who appear to have no sense of rhythm at all, nor any respect or affection for white people; and white Americans really do not know what to make of all this, except to increase the defense budget.

  James A. Baldwin

  Dark, White, People

  16 Copy quote

• The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, White, Black

  "Letter from a Region in My Mind" by James Baldwin, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

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• The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.

  James A. Baldwin

  Dream, Real, People

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• There is a 'sanctity' involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

  James A. Baldwin

  Funny, Uplifting, Baby

  31 Copy quote

• You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.

  James A. Baldwin

  Change, Writing, Reality

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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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 A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Change, Karma

  "No Name in the Street". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1972.

  24 Copy quote

• White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this - which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never - the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.

  James A. Baldwin

  White, People, And Love

  "Letter from a Region of My Mind". The New Yorker, November 17, 1962.

  11 Copy quote

• It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, America, Pet

  39 Copy quote

• Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.

  James A. Baldwin

  Dark, Artist, Safety

  "Conversations With James Baldwin". Book by James Baldwin, 1989.

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• If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free.

  James A. Baldwin

  Giving, Justice, Diversity

  "Letter from a Region in My Mind". www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

  9 Copy quote

• Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?

  James A. Baldwin

  House, Burning, Want

  The Fire Next Time (1963)

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• There are people in the world for whom "coming along" is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.

  James A. Baldwin

  People, World, Process

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• Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

  James A. Baldwin

  Home, Irrevocable, Conditions

  "Giovanni's Room". Book by James A. Baldwin (Part 2), www.newyorker.com. 1956.

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• To be born in a free society and not to be born free is to be born into a lie. To be told by co-citizens and co-Christians that you have no value, no history, have never done anything that is worthy of human respect destroys you because in the beginning you believe it.

  James A. Baldwin

  Christian, Lying, Believe

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