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For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.

James A. Baldwin

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James A. Baldwin
Nothing
Unbearable
Freedom

More quotes by James A. Baldwin

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Society is held together by our need we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden.
James A. Baldwin
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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.
James A. Baldwin
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One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.
James A. Baldwin
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The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.
James A. Baldwin
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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.
James A. Baldwin
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We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be.
James A. Baldwin
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The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.
James A. Baldwin
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A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.
James A. Baldwin
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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
James A. Baldwin
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Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love and be loved.
James A. Baldwin
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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
James A. Baldwin
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When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.
James A. Baldwin
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America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep.
James A. Baldwin
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When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.
James A. Baldwin
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There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that *they* must accept *you*. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love.
James A. Baldwin
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The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself.
James A. Baldwin
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The universe, which is not merely the stars and the moon and the planets, flowers, grass and trees, but other people, has evolved no terms for your existence, has made no room for you, and if love will not swing wide the gates, no other power will or can. And if one despairs-- as who has not?-- of human love, God's love alone is left.
James A. Baldwin
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People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.
James A. Baldwin
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A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.
James A. Baldwin
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I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.
James A. Baldwin