Quotessence
Home / Authors / James A. Baldwin
James A. Baldwin

James A. Baldwin Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleKnowsWorldIfsMenThinkingWayLiteratureJusticeWhiteHumansOrderWritingCultureBlackCountryDiversityDoeSocial JusticeInspirational

Famous James A. Baldwin Quotes

“There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed ... But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.”

MenWorldHumansChildrenPurposeArtistLosesCitiesRolesDarknessForeverMinesDutySightForestsConquerWildernessFedsPreciseConquestDwellingSwampsDrainedDwelling Place
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image

“All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours.”

PeopleKnowsMenReasonOrderMusicAirTerribleMusic IsHearingOccasionsTriumphRisingVoidImposingTriumphantVanishingRare Occasion
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image

“It will be hard James but you come from sturdy peasant stock men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity You come from a long line of great poets some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said "The very time I thought I was lost My dungeon shook and my chains fell off." You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you James and Godspeed.”

KnowsMenYearsLongSaidCountryHardLostLinesPoetHundredBuiltRiversDignityTeethCelebrateChainsBlessOddsPeasantsGod BlessCottonRailroadsDungeonsGreat PoetSturdyLong LinesGod Bless You
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image

“I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are.”

KnowsMenWayTryingLongCountryReasonUsedLyingResponsibilityCitizensConsciousResponsibleGuiltGuiltyLuxuryAfrican AmericanNot InterestedVocabularyPersonal ResponsibilityCitizenry
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image

“Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”

MenWorldLongRealEndsSelfMomentsDreamAbleLossKnownGreaterImagineIdentityHigherSafetyPrivilegeSurrenderPityBreakupBitternessDaringPossessedSelf PityReal Change
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image

“The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldHumansChildrenPoliticalSpeakInterestTakenConscienceRainResponsibleTerrorismTyrannyHuman LifeTortureBombsCivilizedTyrantsStatus QuoWretchedSlaughterSanctityEnslavementDefenselessSanctity Of Human Life
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image

“Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

KnowsMenPersonsCountryCertainAsksBlackJusticePoorEnemyCasesIgnoranceConceptsHallsWretchedMexican
Author:James A. Baldwin
Create image