The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Black experience2 quotes
It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you. — James Baldwin · 1965My life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart. — James Baldwin · 1955Poverty2 quotes
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 Baldwin · 1961Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. — James Baldwin · 1960Authenticity1 quote
Best advice I ever got was an old friend mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all. — James Baldwin · 1984Being true to oneself1 quote
Best advice I ever got was an old friend mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all. — James Baldwin · 1984Black music1 quote
It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. It is a story which otherwise has yet to be told and which no American is prepared to hear. — James Baldwin · 1951Broken heart1 quote
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive. — James Baldwin · 1963Courage1 quote
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Effects of racism1 quote
My life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart. — James Baldwin · 1955Fighting for justice1 quote
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Following your heart1 quote
Best advice I ever got was an old friend mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all. — James Baldwin · 1984Freedom1 quote
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. — James Baldwin · 1961Liberation1 quote
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. — James Baldwin · 1961Life1 quote
Best advice I ever got was an old friend mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all. — James Baldwin · 1984Money and sex1 quote
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 Baldwin · 1961Nature of freedom1 quote
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. — James Baldwin · 1961Parents and children1 quote
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. They must, they have no other models. — James Baldwin · 1960Political courage1 quote
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Politics1 quote
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Power of literature1 quote
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive. — James Baldwin · 1963Progress1 quote
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Race relations1 quote
It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. It is a story which otherwise has yet to be told and which no American is prepared to hear. — James Baldwin · 1951Sex1 quote
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 Baldwin · 1961The human condition1 quote
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive. — James Baldwin · 1963