« All All Quotes · James A. Baldwin's Page
All Quotes by James A. Baldwin
- I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
- To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
- To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that…
- 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…
- It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who…
- 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…
- The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs…
- The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of…
- What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people…
- If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only be setting someone free.
- Words like 'freedom', 'justice' and 'democracy' are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It…
- We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.
- He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform…
- 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…
- I really do believe in the New Jerusalem. I really do believe that we can all become better than we are. I know we can.…
- I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.…
- All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not…
- All racists are irresponsible.
- Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst,…
- I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village, waiting for the light to change, and he…
More All Quotes
- . . . a basic law: the more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.… — Norman Vincent Peale
- Whenever my pocket money fall short. I start to think my life sucks. Then I think about all those out there who… — Anurag Prakash Ray
- Don't be selfish and tell me why you're unfollowing me so I can retweet it for the rest and we all can… — Nikhil Saluja
- All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. — Aristotle
- No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has… — Hannah Arendt
- Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are… — Aristotle
- At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst. — Aristotle
- Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise. — Hannah Arendt