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" People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead. "

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

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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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" To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. "

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" Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours. "

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

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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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" To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread. "

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" You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. "

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" A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. "

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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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" Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks. "

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

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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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" The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all. "

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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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" Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law. "

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" Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. "

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" The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide. "

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" It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. "

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" Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it. "

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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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" The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others. "

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" When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living. "

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" If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. "

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" Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up. "

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" Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. "

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