“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
Power
“No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.”
TimeAll Quotes by James A. Baldwin
“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
Time“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“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
History“The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.”
Experience“The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.”
Power“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“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.”
History“Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?”
Love“People can cry much easier than they can change.”
Change“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“No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.”
Time“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.”
Failure“The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.”
Future“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“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“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
Fear“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“Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.”
Education“The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.”
Knowledge