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" I want to be an honest man and a good writer. "

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. "

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" The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love. "

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" Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. "

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" Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality. "

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" Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black. "

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" The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. "

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" I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. "

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" American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. "

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" I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. "

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" Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? "

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" The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory. "

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" The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. "

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" I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all. "

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" Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. "

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" 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. "

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" It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. "

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" I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. "

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" There is a 'sanctity' involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it. "

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" People can cry much easier than they can change. "

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" The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever. "

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" The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. "

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" 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. "

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" The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in. "

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

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" People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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