James Baldwin Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old James Baldwin quotes, James Baldwin sayings, and James Baldwin proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life's possibilities. James Baldwin
We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. James Baldwin
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 most inhuman excesses. James Baldwin
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. James Baldwin
People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction. James Baldwin
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 Baldwin
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be James Baldwin
Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. James Baldwin
Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. James Baldwin
He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die. James Baldwin
One of these days, 'he said.' Everything bad will happen—one of these days. James Baldwin
Everybody’s journey is individual. You 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. James Baldwin
People can cry much easier than they can change. James Baldwin
Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore. James Baldwin
Every day in the city, on the contrary — and I grew up in the city — involves a subtle divorce from reality. There is something a little terrifying about being forty stories in the air and looking around you, and you see nothing but walls, other skyscrapers, and you don't dare look down. And if you are on the ground, if you want to see the sky, you must make an effort of the will and look up. And if you do that, you are likely to be carried off to Bellevue — but that is another story. James Baldwin
No one in the city, except your immediate family — not always they— says good morning. James Baldwin
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. James Baldwin
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. James Baldwin
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 Baldwin
Everybody’s journey is individual. You 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. James Baldwin
Children have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. They must, they have no other models. James 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 Baldwin
There is a sanctity involved with bringing a child into this world, it is better than bombing one out of it. James Baldwin
The name of the game in America is banks and power. And one does not have to investigate too far to discover that the Western economy has been built on the backs of non-white people. James Baldwin
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. James Baldwin
Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. James Baldwin
Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind. James Baldwin
Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart, for his purity, by definition, is unassailable. James Baldwin
Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. James Baldwin
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance. James Baldwin