Quote

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

James A. Baldwin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James A. Baldwin
Read
Pain
History
Think
Thinking
World
Heartbreak
Unprecedented
Empathy

More quotes by James A. Baldwin

Image
It seems to be typical of life in America ... that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.
James A. Baldwin
Image
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
Image
For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
James A. Baldwin
Image
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
Image
Employment is my right my destiny.
James A. Baldwin
Image
A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.
James A. Baldwin
Image
People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
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
People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
James A. Baldwin
Image
One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.
James A. Baldwin
Image
Great art can only be created out of love.
James A. Baldwin
Image
To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it fears must be faced.
James A. Baldwin
Image
There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.
James A. Baldwin
Image
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.
James A. Baldwin
Image
The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.
James A. Baldwin
Image
An American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa.
James A. Baldwin
Image
One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.
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
The challenge is in the moment the time is always now.
James A. Baldwin
Image
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