“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.”
Relationship
“I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.”
PositiveAll Quotes by James A. Baldwin
“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.”
Money“The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.”
Power“People can cry much easier than they can change.”
Change“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.”
Love“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.”
Respect“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
History“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.”
Love“The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.”
Knowledge“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
Fear“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.”
Men“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”
History“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.”
Hope“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.”
Future“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.”
Education“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
Time“No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.”
Time“I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.”
Positive“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.”
History“The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.”
Future