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James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 2

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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people.

James A. Baldwin
Pain, Thinking, People
"Doom and glory of knowing who you are". Jane Howard, Life Magazine, Volume 54, No. 21 (p. 89), May 24, 1963.

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected - those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! - and listens to their testimony.

James A. Baldwin
Country, Law, Class
"No Name in the Street". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1972.

Artists are here to disturb the peace.

James A. Baldwin
Artist
"Conversations With James Baldwin". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1989.

Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

James A. Baldwin
Motivational, Freedom, Individual Effort
"The Crusade of Indignation" by James A. Baldwin in "The Nation" (New York, July 7, 1956); later quoted in James A. Baldwin "The Price of the Ticket", 1985.

It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

James A. Baldwin
Mirrors, Order, People

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 to them, poisoned.

James A. Baldwin
Respect, People, Water
"No Name in the Street". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1972.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

James A. Baldwin
Inspirational, Black, Poverty
Nobody Knows My Name (1961) "Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a letter from Harlem"

The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.

James A. Baldwin
Children, Rain, Taken
"The Devil Finds Work". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1976, reprinted in James A. Baldwin "The Price of the Ticket", 1985.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

James A. Baldwin
Education, Paradox, Conscious
"A Talk to Teachers". James A. Baldwin's address to a group of educators (October 1963), first published in the Saturday Review (December 1963), later quoted in "James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in a Time of Turmoil" by Clint Smith, www.newyorker.com. September 23, 2017.

Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.

James A. Baldwin
Joy, Sorrow, Needs

The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself.

James A. Baldwin
Lying, Expectations, World
"The shot that echoes still" by James Baldwin, www.esquire.com. January 12, 2018.

The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.

James A. Baldwin
Love You, Artist, Roles

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

James A. Baldwin
Passion, Army, Sacrifice
"Letter from a Region of My Mind". The New Yorker, November 17, 1962. Republished in "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin as "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind", 1963.

The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.

James A. Baldwin
Able, Victim, Threat
"Watch 'Strolling,' a Powerful Web Series About the African Diaspora" by Alexis Okeowo, www.newyorker.com. March 11, 2016.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.

James A. Baldwin
Pain, People, Way

If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.

James A. Baldwin
Thinking, Ifs

The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.

James A. Baldwin
Way, Facts, Force

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

James A. Baldwin
Time, Future, Blessing
"James Baldwin: 10 insightful quotes on his birthday" by Elizabeth Drake, www.csmonitor.com. August 02, 2012.

I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive.

James A. Baldwin
Alive, Pessimist, I Am Alive

Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

James A. Baldwin
Indifference, Blind, Terror

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.

James A. Baldwin
Inspirational, Knows, Ifs

The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white.

James A. Baldwin
Ideas, White, Progress

Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love and be loved.

James A. Baldwin
Hate, Mean, Coins

Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity

James A. Baldwin
Believe, Trying, Doe
"A Letter to My Nephew" by James Baldwin, progressive.org. January 1, 1962.

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

James A. Baldwin
Reality, Color, Political
"Letter from a Region in My Mind" by James A. Baldwin, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

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