James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

  James A. Baldwin

  Life, Happiness, Success

  "Collected Essays, Vol. 2". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1998.

  61 Copy quote

• Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

  James A. Baldwin

  Indifference, Blind, Terror

  20 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

• 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"

  90 Copy quote

• Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.

  James A. Baldwin

  Happiness, Lying, Discipline

  The Paris Review Interview (Issues 91-94, p. 77), 1984.

  43 Copy quote

• I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

  James A. Baldwin

  African American, Philanthropy, Made

  17 Copy quote

• Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Freedom, Government

  Nobody Knows My Name (1961) "Notes for a Hypothetical Novel"

  37 Copy quote

• We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them -- to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it. That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That's very important. If you don't forgive yourself you'll never be able to forgive anybody else and you'll go on committing the same crimes forever.

  James A. Baldwin

  Lying, Forever, Forgiving

  9 Copy quote

• Recognizing a problem doesn't always bring a solution, but until we recognize that problem, there can be no solution.

  James A. Baldwin

  Forgiveness, Problem, Recognizing

  6 Copy quote

• We should certainly know by now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing really to achieve a revolution. Time and time and time again, the people discover that they have merely betrayed themselves into the hands of yet another Pharaoh, who, since he was necessary to put the broken country together, will not let them go.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Hands, People

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

  64 Copy quote

• Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.

  James A. Baldwin

  Reality, Color, Political

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

  65 Copy quote

• People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.

  James A. Baldwin

  Character, Names, People

  23 Copy quote

• God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead.

  James A. Baldwin

  Book, Voice

  33 Copy quote

• American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

  James A. Baldwin

  Beautiful, Literature, American History

  "James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in a Time of Turmoil" by Clint Smith, www.newyorker.com. September 23, 2017.

  32 Copy quote

• The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.

  James A. Baldwin

  Way, Facts, Force

  23 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

  7 Copy quote

• It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

  James A. Baldwin

  Education, Country, Independent

  44 Copy quote

• There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

  James A. Baldwin

  Time, Future, Blessing

  "James Baldwin: 10 insightful quotes on his birthday" by Elizabeth Drake, www.csmonitor.com. August 02, 2012.

  16 Copy quote

• The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.

  James A. Baldwin

  Art, Answers, Purpose

  12 Copy quote

• 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 seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Believe, Hero

  47 Copy quote

• The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.

  James A. Baldwin

  Thinking, White, Racism

  11 Copy quote

• 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

• Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

  James A. Baldwin

  Passion, Army, Sacrifice

  "Letter from a Region of My Mind". The New Yorker, November 17, 1962. Republished in "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin as "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind", 1963.

  26 Copy quote

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Hate, Men, Law

  49 Copy quote

• Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Success, Broken Heart

  "James Baldwin's much anticipated new novel - archive" by Hugh Hebert, www.theguardian.com. June 18, 2016.

  52 Copy quote

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