James A. Baldwin Life Quotations

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you'll never make it.

Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.

Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him-he may be forced to-but nothing will efface his origins, the marks of which he carries with him everywhere. I think it is important to know this and even find it a matter for rejoicing, as the strongest people do, regardless of their station. On this acceptance, literally, the life of a writer depends.

I'm beginning to think that maybe everything that happens makes sense. Like, if it didn't make sense, how could it happen?

Life is more important than art; that's what makes art important.

The wretched of the earth do not decide to become extinct, they resolve, on the contrary, to multiply: life is their weapon against life, life is all that they have.

We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.