A List of Famous James Baldwin Quotes By Reference

A list of quotes from James Baldwin. Here are the best James Baldwin quotes on various subjects. The James Baldwin quotations list is alphabetical but can be sorted by any column. Enjoy these sayings coined by James Baldwin. You can use the items in this factual list to create a new list, re-rank it to fit your views, then share it on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networks you belong to.

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1

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

James Baldwin

Education
2

A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.

James Baldwin

Truth
3

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

United States of America
4

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger. 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. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes.

James Baldwin

Identity
5

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

James Baldwin

Identity
6

Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievements must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.

James Baldwin

Freedom
7

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

Writers and Writing
8

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

James Baldwin

Poverty and The Poor
9

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

James Baldwin

Desire
10

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

James Baldwin

Power
11

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

James Baldwin

Children
12

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

Christians and Christianity
13

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

Belief
14

Experience is a private, and a very largely speechless affair.

James Baldwin

Experience
15

Experience that destroys innocents also leads one back to it.

James Baldwin

Experience
16

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.

James Baldwin

Enthusiasm
17

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

Police
18

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.

James Baldwin

Fathers and Sons
19

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.

James Baldwin

Institutions
20

It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.

James Baldwin

Persecution
21

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.

James Baldwin

Giving
22

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

James Baldwin

Education
23

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

James Baldwin

Money
24

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

James Baldwin

Change
25

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

James Baldwin

Prediction
26

No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

James Baldwin

Purity
27

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

Change
28

People can cry much easier than they can change.

James Baldwin

Change
29

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

James Baldwin

Innocence
30

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 Baldwin

Abuse
31

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, which is the only fact we have.

James Baldwin

Death and Dying
32

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.

James Baldwin

Pessimism
33

Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.

James Baldwin

Anger
34

Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden.

James Baldwin

Society
35

The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden -- as an unpatriotic act -- that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood.

James Baldwin

Human sexuality
36

The American ideal, after all, is that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

James Baldwin

Conformity
37

The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.

James Baldwin

Multiculturalism
38

The future is... black.

James Baldwin

The future
39

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.

James Baldwin

Student
40

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

James Baldwin

Immigration
41

The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

James Baldwin

Teamwork
42

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

Education
43

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

James Baldwin

Vocation
44

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

James Baldwin

Arts and Artists
45

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

James Baldwin

Sex
46

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

James Baldwin

Writers and Writing
47

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

James Baldwin

Failure
48

There is a sanctity involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

James Baldwin

Children
49

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 Baldwin

Present
50

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

James Baldwin

Exile
51

We are all androgynous, not only because we are all born of a woman impregnated by the seed of a man but because each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other -- male in female, female in male, white in black and black in white. We are a part of each other. Many of my countrymen appear to find this fact exceedingly inconvenient and even unfair, and so, very often, do I. But none of us can do anything about it.

James Baldwin

Gender
52

We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.

James Baldwin

Minorities
53

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

James Baldwin

Belief
54

We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed.

James Baldwin

Truth
55

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

James Baldwin

Quotation
56

When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.

James Baldwin

Books and Reading
57

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 Baldwin

Human rights
58

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 Baldwin

Oppression

Showing items 1 - 25 of 58

A List of Famous James Baldwin Quotes you can use this list to help make your own ranked list about this topic

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

A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.

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.

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.

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

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

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

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

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.

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.

Experience is a private, and a very largely speechless affair.

Experience that destroys innocents also leads one back to it.

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.

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.

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.

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 a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.

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

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

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

No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

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.

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.

Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.

Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden.

The American ideal, after all, is that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.

The future is... black.

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 making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

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.

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

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

There is a sanctity involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

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.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.

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.

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.