The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons. James A. Baldwin More Quotes by James A. Baldwin More Quotes From James A. Baldwin I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are. James A. Baldwin responsibility country lying People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. James A. Baldwin strong life believe The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat. James A. Baldwin threat able victim 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 A. Baldwin respect water people A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do. James A. Baldwin experience knows thinking Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. James A. Baldwin love friendship life We should certainly know by now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing really to achieve a revolution. Time and time and time again, the people discover that they have merely betrayed themselves into the hands of yet another Pharaoh, who, since he was necessary to put the broken country together, will not let them go. James A. Baldwin country hands people It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. James A. Baldwin ignorance justice enemy 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 A. Baldwin paradox conscious education You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. James A. Baldwin pain people thinking 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 A. Baldwin discipline happiness lying Whatever you describe to another person is also a revelation of who you are and who you think you are. You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything. James A. Baldwin revelations views thinking It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. James A. Baldwin hate spiritual children If the word 'integration' means anything, this is what it means that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. James A. Baldwin brother mean reality The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it. James A. Baldwin fit Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace. James A. Baldwin safety artist dark Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law. James A. Baldwin hate law men It comes as a great shock…to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance…has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you. James A. Baldwin flags shock killing I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all. James A. Baldwin philanthropy african-american made It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror. James A. Baldwin mirrors order people
