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Quotes About Sacrifice

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
~ James Baldwin
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
It was a gesture of great despair and I knew that she was giving herself, not to me, but to that lover who would never come.
~ James Baldwin
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. One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself -- that is to say, risking oneself. If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving.
~ James Baldwin
One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself - that is to say, risking oneself. If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving
~ James Baldwin
I understood why Giovanni had wanted me and had brought me to his last retreat. I was to destroy this room and give to Giovanni a new and better life. This life could only be my own, which, in order to transform Giovanni's, must first become a part of Giovanni's room.
~ James Baldwin
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. 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
Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own - which it is - and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.
~ James Baldwin
And her mother still struggled in these white kitchens in town, humming sweet hymns, tiny, mild eyed and bent, her father still labored on the oyster boats; after a lifetime of labor, should they drop dead tomorrow, there would not be a penny for their burial clothes.
~ James Baldwin
Yes, Mama. I'm going to try to love the Lord." At this there sprang into his mother's face something startling, beautiful, unspeakably sad—as though she were looking far beyond him at a long, dark road, and seeing on that road a traveler in perpetual danger. Was it he, the traveler? or herself? or was she thinking of the cross of Jesus?
~ James Baldwin
The burden of his salvation seemed to be on me and I could not endure it.
~ James Baldwin
One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself—that is to say, risking oneself. If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free.
~ James Baldwin
Negroes know about each other what can here be called family secrets, and this means that one Negro, if he wishes, can "knock" the other's "hustle"—can give his game away. It is still not possible to overstate the price a Negro pays to climb out of obscurity—for it is a particular price, involved with being a Negro; and the great wounds, gouges, amputations, losses, scars, endured in such a journey cannot be calculated.
~ James Baldwin
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. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.
~ James Baldwin
One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself—that is to say, risking oneself.
~ James Baldwin
Birden Giovanni'nin beni neden istediÄŸini, neden bu son s???na??na getirdiÄŸini anlad?m. Bu oday? y?kacak, Giovanni'ye yeni ve daha iyi bir yaÅŸam armaÄŸan edecektim. Bu yaÅŸam ancak benim kendi yaÅŸam?m olabilirdi ve Giovanni'nin yaÅŸam?n? deÄŸiÅŸtirebilmesi için benim yaÅŸam?m?n da bu odan?n bir parças? olmas? gerekecekti.
~ James Baldwin
I remembered his older brother, who had died in Sicily, in battle for the free world- he had barely had time to see Sicily before he died and had assuredly never seen the free world.
~ James Baldwin
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty 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... One... ought to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.
~ James Baldwin
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. . . . One . . . ought to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.
~ James Baldwin
You do, sometimes, remind of the kind of man who is tempted to put himself in prison in order to avoid being hit by a car.
~ James Baldwin
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. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.
~ James Baldwin
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. It
~ James Baldwin
We will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, armies, flags nations in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me one should rejoice in the fact of death, one out to decide indeed to earn ones death by confronting with passion, the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life. It is that small beacon from that terrifying darkness from wence we come and wence we shall return.
~ James Baldwin
We will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, armies, flags, & nations; in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me one should rejoice in the fact of death, one out to decide indeed to earn ones death by confronting with passion, the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life. It is that small beacon from that terrifying darkness from wence we come and wence we shall return.
~ James Baldwin