James Baldwin Quotes

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

People are trapped in history and history is trapp... -James Baldwin

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

Discovering the context

This quote emphasizes the interplay between individuals and history, suggesting a mutual influence and entrapment. It implies that individuals are shaped and influenced by the historical context and circumstances in which they live, while history itself is influenced and shaped by the actions and perspectives of individuals.

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.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but... -James Baldwin

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

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

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

I've always believed that you can think positive j... -James Baldwin

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

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively... -James Baldwin

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

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

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subj... -James Baldwin

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

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

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

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.

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

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live w... -James Baldwin

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

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

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

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