James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 6

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• 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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• 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.

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• When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, Thinking, Order

  "Clemenceau, The Events of His Life as Told by Himself to His Former Secretary, Jean Martet". Book translated by Milton Waldman. Chapter 12: "Conversation with Jean Martet", 1930.

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• I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Moving, Thinking

  "Autobiographical Notes" by James A. Baldwin (1952), republished in James A. Baldwin "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), archive.nytimes.com.

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• People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

  James A. Baldwin

  People, Giving, Parent

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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.

  James A. Baldwin

  Liberty, Affliction, Crutches

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• Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.

  James A. Baldwin

  Breakup, Dream, Real

  "Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1961.

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• A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.

  James A. Baldwin

  Artist, Heaven, Assuming

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• When the white man came to Africa, the white man had the Bible and the African had the land, but now it is the white man who is being, reluctantly and bloodily, separated from the land, and the African who is still attempting to digest or to vomit up the Bible.

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, White Man, Land

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

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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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• Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.

  James A. Baldwin

  Life, Acceptance, Limits

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• It is hard for anyone under twenty to realise that death has already assigned them a number, which is going to come up one day.

  James A. Baldwin

  Numbers, One Day, Twenties

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• To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, African American, Literature

  "A race riot forever changed my city. Hollywood only told half the story" by Bankole Thompson, www.theguardian.com. August 28, 2017.

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• 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. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.

  James A. Baldwin

  Passion, Darkness, Sake

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

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• But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

  James A. Baldwin

  Power, Morality, Subtle

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• The writer's only real task: to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art

  James A. Baldwin

  Art, Real, Order

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• There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.

  James A. Baldwin

  Wish, Knows

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

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• Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

  James A. Baldwin

  Work, Men, Fire

  107 Copy quote

• For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for whatthey become.

  James A. Baldwin

  Children, Pay, Profit

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• Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inability, Emotion, Dishonesty

  "Everybody’s Protest Novel". Essay by James A. Baldwin (1949), as quoted in "Uneasy Rider" by Alexandra Schwartz, www.newyorker.com. November 9, 2015.

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• It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, Doe, Prejudice

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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.

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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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• And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time, and furthermore, to win.

  James A. Baldwin

  Winning, Space, Choices

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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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