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" The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. "
James A. Baldwin
Black
Man
Power
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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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Future
Challenge
Time
" Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent. "
James A. Baldwin
Nothing
World
Born
" 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. "
James A. Baldwin
Love
Think
War
" The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever. "
James A. Baldwin
Black
People
Power
" When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living. "
James A. Baldwin
Living
Habit
Stop
" 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. "
James A. Baldwin
Bread
Back
Treat
" 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. "
James A. Baldwin
Know
Yourself
You
" 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. "
James A. Baldwin
Everything
He
Greed
" American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. "
James A. Baldwin
American
More
Said
" To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. "
James A. Baldwin
Act
Committed
Danger
" 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
Still
Lead
Pay
" Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it. "
James A. Baldwin
Control
Language
Legend
" People can cry much easier than they can change. "
James A. Baldwin
Than
People
Much
" The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. "
James A. Baldwin
Lose
Man
Nothing
" I want to be an honest man and a good writer. "
James A. Baldwin
Man
Honest Man
Honest
" 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
Own
Help
Man
" 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
You
Act
Action
" The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory. "
James A. Baldwin
Glory
Attracted
Spirit
" 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
Life
Day
Down
" Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black. "
James A. Baldwin
You
White
Education
" Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it. "
James A. Baldwin
Done
Others
Doing
" Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? "
James A. Baldwin
Him
Matters
Think
" People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. "
James A. Baldwin
History
Them
People
" It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. "
James A. Baldwin
Impossible
Country
Mind
" Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned. "
James A. Baldwin
Never
Person
Than
" To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. "
James A. Baldwin
Conscious
Rage
Country
" Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. "
James A. Baldwin
More
Frightening
Than
" 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
Money
Nothing
Like
" 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. "
James A. Baldwin
Hide
End
Young
" 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
Think
Hope
Human