« All Them Quotes · James A. Baldwin's Page
Them Quotes by James A. Baldwin
- Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
- 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…
- Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider…
- People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
- I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, in a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The…
- Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the…
- The greatest significance of the present student generation is that it is through them that the point of view of the subjugated is finally and…
- Negro servants have been smuggling odds and ends out of white homes for generations, and white people have been delighted to have them do it,…
- James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in…
- People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes…
- We should certainly know by now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing really to…
- I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I…
- To hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first . . . acceptance totally without rancor, of life…
- Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed…
- These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low…
- It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as…
- We do not trust educated people and rarely, alas, produce them, for we do not trust the independence of mind which alone makes a genuine…
- A person does not lightly elect to oppose his society. One would much rather be at home among one's compatriots than be mocked and detested…
- After departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love.…
- It will be hard James but you come from sturdy peasant stock men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads and in the…
- It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an "integrationist" - this was never, quite, my own idea of…
- There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that *they*…
- For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea…
- He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger.…
- We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them -- to try to understand what you have done, why you have…
More Them Quotes
- Poets are the only people to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake… — Hannah Arendt
- A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and… — Pietro Aretino
- If you want to annoy your neighbors, tell the truth about them. — Pietro Aretino
- Flattery and deceit are the darlings of great men, and so with these men spread the butter on thick, if you want… — Pietro Aretino
- As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris, waiting to be rescued. When we think of… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those… — Aristotle
- In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of… — Aristotle
- Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes… — Aristotle
- Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. — Aristotle
- Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. — Aristotle
- Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit. — Aristotle
- Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see… — Paul Auster