Humans Quotes by James A. Baldwin

9 Humans quotes by James A. Baldwin

All Humans quotes James A. Baldwin’s page

James A. Baldwin’s incisive prose shines in these nine short quotes. He tackles race, identity, and love with unflinching honesty, delivering a resonant, thought‑provoking snapshot.

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... every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

James A. Baldwin

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Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality.

James A. Baldwin

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed ... But the…

James A. Baldwin

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More by James A. Baldwin

One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own.

James A. Baldwin

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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.

James A. Baldwin

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

James A. Baldwin

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

James A. Baldwin

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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

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I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.

James A. Baldwin

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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

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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

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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…

James A. Baldwin

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A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

James A. Baldwin

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Most people... find a disorientating mismatch between the long-term nature of their liabilities and the increasingly short-term nature of their assets.

James A. Baldwin

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