James A. Baldwin Quotes

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 one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

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

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.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

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.

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 it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.

I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

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.

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

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.

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

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

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.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

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.