Quote

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.

James A. Baldwin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James A. Baldwin
Time
Sets
Life
Tragic
Sun
Simply
Turns
Lasts
Last
Inexorably
Earth
Rises

More quotes by James A. Baldwin

Image
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 A. Baldwin
Image
Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them for what they are.
James A. Baldwin
Image
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.
James A. Baldwin
Image
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 A. Baldwin
Image
People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen forget.
James A. Baldwin
Image
The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
James A. Baldwin
Image
The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.
James A. Baldwin
Image
Most people... find a disorientating mismatch between the long-term nature of their liabilities and the increasingly short-term nature of their assets.
James A. Baldwin
Image
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.
James A. Baldwin
Image
The impossible is the least that one can demand.
James A. Baldwin
Image
Because I was raised in a Christian culture I never considered myself to be a totally free human being.
James A. Baldwin
Image
James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them.
James A. Baldwin
Image
A real writer is always shifting and changing and searching.
James A. Baldwin
Image
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
James A. Baldwin
Image
We do not trust educated people and rarely, alas, produce them, for we do not trust the independence of mind which alone makes a genuine education possible.
James A. Baldwin
Image
I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.
James A. Baldwin
Image
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
James A. Baldwin
Image
You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.
James A. Baldwin
Image
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
James A. Baldwin
Image
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
James A. Baldwin