Quotes by James Baldwin

James Baldwin

James Baldwin

American writer

Lived from: 1924 - 1987

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 2 august 1924 Died: 1 december 1987

  • 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 inexorably being expressed.
  • 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.
  • If you're treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they're real for you whether they're real or not.
  • It is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important.
  • Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.
  • The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.
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  • 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 Baldwin
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  • An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.
    Nobody Knows My Name (1961)
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty - necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an immediate knowledge of its ugly side.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • A man's balance depends on the weight he carries between his legs.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • After my best friend jumped off the bridge, I knew that I was next. So-Paris. With forty dollars and a one-way ticket.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • All art is a kind of confession.
    Nobody Knows My Name (1961)
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • At bottom, to be colored means that one has been caught in some utterly unbelievable cosmic joke, a joke so hideous and in such bad taste that it defeats all categories and definitions.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.
    ― James Baldwin
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  • Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality.
    ― James Baldwin
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What are the most famous quotes from James Baldwin?

The two most famous quotes from James Baldwin are:

  • "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."
  • "An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience."

When did James Baldwin live?

James Baldwin was born in 1924 and died in the year 1987.