James Baldwin Quotes

A collection of quotes by James Baldwin.

James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, and social critic. Born on August 2, 1924, in Harlem, New York, he was the eldest of his mother's nine children. Baldwin's childhood was marked by poverty and racial injustice, which heavily influenced his later works. Despite these challenges, he discovered his love for reading and writing at a young age.

Baldwin's writing explored complex themes of race, sexuality, and class in America. His novels, such as "Go Tell It on the Mountain" (1953) and "Another Country" (1962), garnered critical acclaim for their honest portrayal of African American life and identity. In addition to fiction, he also penned numerous essays, including "Notes of a Native Son" (1955) and "The Fire Next Time" (1963), which further established him as a powerful voice for civil rights and equality.

Baldwin became a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement, giving speeches and participating in protests against racial discrimination. His activism often drew from his personal experiences as a gay Black man. After spending many years in France to escape the racism he faced in the United States, Baldwin returned to America in the late 1950s and continued to champion the cause for justice until his death.

James Baldwin's eloquent and impassioned writing continues to resonate with audiences today, cementing his legacy as one of America's most influential literary and social figures. He passed away on December 1, 1987, leaving a lasting impact on the exploration of race and identity in American literature.

Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This disse

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

Anger

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of n

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.

Money

There is never time in the future in which we will work out

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.

Present

You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because

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.

Oppression

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has b

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

Quotations

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle

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

Power

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

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

Prejudice

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happ

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

Prophecy

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or

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.

Pessimism

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when t

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.

Identity

If you're treated a certain way you become a certain kind of

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.

Society

Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to al

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.

America

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man w

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.

Failure

Any honest examination of the national life proves how far w

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.

Freedom

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and ke

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.

Charity

We are all androgynous, not only because we are all born of

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.

Men & Women

Words like freedom, justice, democracy are not common concep

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.

Humanity

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced

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.

Father

Experience is a private, and a very largely speechless affai

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

Experience

The making of an American begins at the point where he himse

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.

Immigration