Quotes of James A. Baldwin - somelinesforyou

“ Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up. ”

- 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

“ 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

“ People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ 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 be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ 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 mysteries, the possibility of torment. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. ”

- 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

“ 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 — which was to hide. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ 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 — which was to hide. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The future is like heaven - everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ”

- James A. Baldwin

“ The future is like heaven - everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. ”

- James A. Baldwin
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