Famous James Arthur Baldwin Quotations

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"The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers."
by James A. Baldwin
"The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black."
by James A. Baldwin
"The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love."
by James A. Baldwin
"The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone."
by James A. Baldwin
"There is a ''sanctity'' involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it."
by James A. Baldwin
"We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours."
by James A. Baldwin
"If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live."
by James A. Baldwin
"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."
by James A. Baldwin
"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."
by James A. Baldwin
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."
by James A. Baldwin
"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."
by James A. Baldwin
"It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless."
by James A. Baldwin
"It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind."
by James A. Baldwin
"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."
by James Baldwin
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Beyond talent lie all the usual words discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need a sense of life's possibilities."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given Freedom is something that people take and people are as free as they want to be."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didnt have it and thought of other things if you did."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"No one can possibly know what is about to happen it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"The price we pay when pursuing any art or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"The price one pays for pursuing a profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"To defend one's self against fear is simply to ensure that one will, one day, be conquered by it fears must be faced."
by James Arthur Baldwin
"You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way ... people look at reality, then you can change it."
by James Arthur Baldwin


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