James A. Baldwin

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

— James A. Baldwin

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

— James A. Baldwin

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

— James A. Baldwin

The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the…

— James A. Baldwin

The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians,…

— James A. Baldwin

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to…

— James A. Baldwin

We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it…

— James A. Baldwin

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

— James A. Baldwin

James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People…

— James A. Baldwin

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

— James A. Baldwin

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must…

— James A. Baldwin

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to…

— James A. Baldwin

White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they…

— James A. Baldwin

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

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

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.

— James A. 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 think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. [and then you discover…

— 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…

— James A. Baldwin

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is…

— James A. Baldwin

If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you'll never make it.

— James A. Baldwin

You don't realize that you're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.

— James A. Baldwin

What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that…

— James A. Baldwin

Negro servants have been smuggling odds and ends out of white homes for generations, and white people have been delighted to have…

— James A. Baldwin

Recognizing a problem doesn't always bring a solution, but until we recognize that problem, there can be no solution.

— James A. Baldwin