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

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

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

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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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" Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it. "

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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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" 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. "

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" It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. "

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

James A. Baldwin

" 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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" 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. "

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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 face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment. "

James A. Baldwin

" No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it. "

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" 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. "

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

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

James A. Baldwin