James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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 liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.

  James A. Baldwin

  Thinking, Experience, Knows

  "Some Blues for Mr. Charlie: Obama’s Moment of Truth" by Rev. Peter Laarman, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 21, 2008.

  59 Copy quote

• The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.

  James A. Baldwin

  Children, Rain, Taken

  "The Devil Finds Work". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1976, reprinted in James A. Baldwin "The Price of the Ticket", 1985.

  116 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

  38 Copy quote

• It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.

  James A. Baldwin

  Years, Half, Vomiting

  140 Copy quote

• If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected - those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! - and listens to their testimony.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Law, Class

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

  148 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.

  70 Copy quote

• It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

  James A. Baldwin

  Mirrors, Order, People

  70 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

  32 Copy quote

• 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.

  James A. Baldwin

  Able, Victim, Threat

  "Watch 'Strolling,' a Powerful Web Series About the African Diaspora" by Alexis Okeowo, www.newyorker.com. March 11, 2016.

  64 Copy quote

• I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Lying, Responsibility

  57 Copy quote

• ... every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

  James A. Baldwin

  Miracle, Humans, Unprecedented

  "The shot that echoes still" by James Baldwin, www.esquire.com. January 12, 2018.

  11 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

  68 Copy quote

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Ideas, White, Progress

  77 Copy quote

• It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

  James A. Baldwin

  Spiritual, Children, Hate

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

  53 Copy quote

• 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 A. Baldwin

  Believe, Trying, Doe

  "A Letter to My Nephew" by James Baldwin, progressive.org. January 1, 1962.

  31 Copy quote

• In order to have a conversation with someone you must reveal yourself.

  James A. Baldwin

  Order, Justice, Diversity

  13 Copy quote

• You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

  James A. Baldwin

  Pain, Thinking, Empathy

  "Doom and glory of knowing who you are". "LIFE" Magazine, Vol. 54, No. 21, (p. 89), May 24, 1963.

  55 Copy quote

• 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.

  James A. Baldwin

  Education, Paradox, Conscious

  "A Talk to Teachers". James A. Baldwin's address to a group of educators (October 1963), first published in the Saturday Review (December 1963), later quoted in "James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in a Time of Turmoil" by Clint Smith, www.newyorker.com. September 23, 2017.

  69 Copy quote

• Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love and be loved.

  James A. Baldwin

  Hate, Mean, Coins

  18 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

• Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

  James A. Baldwin

  Motivational, Freedom, Individual Effort

  "The Crusade of Indignation" by James A. Baldwin in "The Nation" (New York, July 7, 1956); later quoted in James A. Baldwin "The Price of the Ticket", 1985.

  22 Copy quote

• It comes as a great shock…to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance…has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.

  James A. Baldwin

  Flags, Killing, Shock

  Speech at Cambridge University, 17 Feb. 1965, in New York Times Magazine 7 March 1965, p. 32

  91 Copy quote

• Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

  James A. Baldwin

  Family, Education, Wisdom

  Nobody Knows My Name (1961) "Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a letter from Harlem"

  91 Copy quote

• You don't realize that you're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.

  James A. Baldwin

  Intelligent, Realizing, Trouble

  "James Baldwin: Reflections of a Maverick". Interview with Julius Lester, The New York Times, May 27, 1984.

  9 Copy quote

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