Quotes from James A. Baldwin

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

No man is a devil in his own mind.

The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

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.

Allegiance, after all, has to work two ways; and one can grow weary of an allegiance which is not reciprocal.

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

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

Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated – in the main, abominably – because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.

The purpose of education...is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.

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

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

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

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

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

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

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

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.

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

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.

A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.

There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform

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

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.