James Baldwin Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about James Baldwin

James Baldwin Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational James Baldwin quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. — James Baldwin

The first love disappears, but never goes. That ache becomes reconciliation. — James Baldwin

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. — James Baldwin

Money, iit turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of otherthings if you did. — James Baldwin

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? — James A. Baldwin

Anyway, I have long had a very definite tendency to tune out the moment I come anywhere near either a pulpit or a soapbox. — James Baldwin

You don't need numbers; you need passion, and this is proven by the history of the world! — James A. Baldwin

Love was a country he knew nothing about. — James Baldwin

Books taught me that things that tormented me the most were the very things that connected me to everyone who is alive and who had ever been alive. — James Baldwin

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

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

It does seem - well, difficult - to be at the mercy of some gross, unshaven stranger before you can begin to be yourself. — James Baldwin

And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white. — James Baldwin

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. — James Baldwin

Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it — James Baldwin

What kind of friendship have you had?
Or for that matter ... what kind of love affairs? — James Baldwin

It seemed, then, that a lifetime would not be long enough for me to act with Joey the act of love. — James Baldwin

We go down the hall again, thank heaven, to my drink. — James Baldwin

Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. — James Baldwin

An American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa. — James A. Baldwin

At four o'clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen. — James A. Baldwin

I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive. — James A. Baldwin

I am certainly convinced that it is one of the greatest impulses of mankind to arrive at something higher than a natural state. — James A. Baldwin

A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence. — James A. Baldwin

In the first place, Descartes stands for the most explicit and uncompromising dualism between mind and matter. — James Mark Baldwin

I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself. — James A. Baldwin

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

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

All of Africa will be free before we can get a lousy cup of coffee. — James A. Baldwin

There is a 'sanctity' involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it. — James A. Baldwin

To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage. — James A. Baldwin

...they ain't never met nobody they didn't lie to and steal from. — James Baldwin

We take our shape within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth. — James Baldwin

Heredity provides for the modification of its own machinery. — James Mark Baldwin

All racists are irresponsible. — James A. Baldwin

At length, she lay beside him like a burden laid down at evening which must be picked up once more in the morning. — James Baldwin

After an interval of two and a half centuries, the tradition of mystic illumination renewed itself in Italy and Germany. — James Mark Baldwin

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

The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white. — James A. Baldwin

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. — James Baldwin

Employment is my right my destiny. — James A. Baldwin

The rebirth of the soul is perpetual; only rebirth every hour could stay the hand of Satan. — James Baldwin

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

Drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides. — James A. Baldwin

The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible. — James Baldwin

Then I buckled up my shoes, and I started. — James A. Baldwin

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable. — James Baldwin

Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house? — James Baldwin

I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world. — James Baldwin

Lord, that Hollywood train, forever coming round the bend! — James Baldwin

If all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination. — James A. Baldwin

I thought she would be fun to have fun with. — James Baldwin

I hoped to burn out, through Hella, my image of Giovanni and the reality of his touch - I hoped to drive out fire with fire. — James Baldwin

Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know. — James Baldwin

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin

I am a big devourer of James Baldwin. — Don Lemon

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. — James Baldwin

Great art can only be created out of love. — James A. Baldwin

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

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

There is nothing more boring, anyway, than sexual activity as an end in itself, and a great many people who came out of the closet should reconsider. — James Baldwin

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

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

One writes out of one thing only-one's own experience, — James A. Baldwin

I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for? — James Baldwin

I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. — James A. Baldwin

She, who had descended with such joy and pain, had begun her upward climb - upward, with her baby, on the steep, steep side of the mountain. — James Baldwin

I am aware that no man is a villain in his own eyes. — James A. Baldwin

Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours. — James A. Baldwin

Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it. — James Baldwin

These captive men are the hidden price for a hiden lie: the righteous must be able to locate the damned. — James Baldwin

This is the charged, the dangerous moment, when everything must be re-examined, must be made new, when nothing at all can be taken for granted. — James Baldwin

Life is more important than art; that's what makes art important. — James A. Baldwin

One day, to everyone's astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up. — James A. Baldwin

Whoever debases others is debasing himself. — James Baldwin

Observing that, from this height, the city which had been so dark as he walked through it seemed to be on fire. — James Baldwin

It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless. — James Baldwin

There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it. — James Baldwin

You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. — James Baldwin

You cannot fix what you will not face. — James A. Baldwin

all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs. One — James Baldwin

We live in a nation of pigs and murderers. — James Baldwin

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

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

Every human being is an unprecedented miracle. — James A. Baldwin

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 Baldwin

I don't know any writers who don't drink. — James Baldwin

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you. — James A. Baldwin

You might feel different out there, with all the sunshine and oranges and all. — James Baldwin

He grins again, and everything inside me moves. Oh, love. Love. — James Baldwin

Everything was as it had been between us, and at the same time everything was different. — James Baldwin

Being in the pulpit, was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked. — James A. Baldwin

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 is you — James Baldwin

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. — James Baldwin

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

Love forces, at last, this humility: you cannot love if you cannot be loved, you cannot see if you cannot be seen. — James Baldwin

And no matter what I was doing, another me sat in my belly, absolutely cold with terror over the question of my life. — James Baldwin

If the world wasn't so full of dead folks maybe those of us that's trying to live wouldn't have to suffer so bad. — James Baldwin

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms. — James Baldwin

Man cannot live by profit alone. — James A. Baldwin