James A. Baldwin Quotes

Quotes about:

• Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Change, Leadership

  "As Much Truth As One Can Bear". The New York Times Book Review, January 14, 1962.

  239 Copy quote

• I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Believe, I Can

  "A Mother’s Story: It Is Not What We Say to Black Boys and Men, It Is What We Do to Them" by Laura W. Murphy, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 30, 2012.

  149 Copy quote

• You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

  James A. Baldwin

  Ideas, World, Force

  94 Copy quote

• 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.

  James A. Baldwin

  Forgiveness, Encouragement, Pain

  "Me and My House". Harper's Magazine, November 1955.

  124 Copy quote

• The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

  James A. Baldwin

  Children, Challenges, Live In The Moment

  "James Baldwin: My Uncle and His Love Life" by T. Better Baldwin, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 30, 2014.

  15 Copy quote

• One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own.

  James A. Baldwin

  Humanity, Deny

  36 Copy quote

• Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Ignorance, Men

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

  168 Copy quote

• People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

  James A. Baldwin

  Eye, Reality, People

  "Stranger in the Village". Essay by James A. Baldwin, first published in Harper's Magazine (1953), republished in James A. Baldwin "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), and later quoted in "Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin's 'Stranger in the Village'" by Teju Cole, www.newyorker.com. August 19, 2014.

  63 Copy quote

• I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive.

  James A. Baldwin

  Alive, Pessimist, I Am Alive

  26 Copy quote

• The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.

  James A. Baldwin

  Fit

  "Another Country" by Claudia Roth Pierpont, www.newyorker.com. February 9, 2009.

  109 Copy quote

• For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

  James A. Baldwin

  Change, Children, Acceptance

  "The Fire Next Time". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1963.

  91 Copy quote

• To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.

  James A. Baldwin

  America, Black, Rage

  "My Son Called Me The Hulk, And I’m OK With It" by Danielle Slaughter, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 28, 2016.

  86 Copy quote

• You cannot fix what you will not face.

  James A. Baldwin

  Self Improvement, Faces

  31 Copy quote

• You've got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.

  James A. Baldwin

  World, Trouble, Treats

  31 Copy quote

• The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.

  James A. Baldwin

  Love You, Artist, Roles

  30 Copy quote

• We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force which can change it.

  James A. Baldwin

  World, Charity, Philanthropy

  51 Copy quote

• If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.

  James A. Baldwin

  Thinking, Ifs

  18 Copy quote

• Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

  James A. Baldwin

  African American, Wise Words, Humiliation

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

  12 Copy quote

• Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Knows, Ifs

  26 Copy quote

• A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

  James A. Baldwin

  Civilization, People, Wicked

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

  68 Copy quote

• You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people.

  James A. Baldwin

  Pain, Thinking, People

  "Doom and glory of knowing who you are". Jane Howard, Life Magazine, Volume 54, No. 21 (p. 89), May 24, 1963.

  81 Copy quote

• It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

  James A. Baldwin

  Ignorance, Justice, Enemy

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

  64 Copy quote

• 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 A. Baldwin

  Pain, People, Way

  66 Copy quote

• The purpose of education...is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.

  James A. Baldwin

  Education, Decision, Looks

  54 Copy quote

• The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white.

  James A. Baldwin

  Ideas, White, Progress

  74 Copy quote

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