To be born in a free society and not to be born free is to be born into a lie. To be… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began.… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
It is impossible to pretend that you are not heir to, and therefore, however inadequately or unwillingly, responsible to, and for, the… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed ... But the… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this,… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
