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22523b5
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I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
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pain
hate
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James Baldwin |
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6dc2a22
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Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
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comfort
philosophy
irrevocability
state-of-mind
completion
fulfillment
belonging
permanence
security
attachment
home
safety
psychology
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James Baldwin |
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4438cc1
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Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact w..
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living
religion
life
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James Baldwin |
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c79b52e
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Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth."
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James Baldwin |
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b96629b
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People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.
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James Baldwin |
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5601cd9
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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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James Baldwin |
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d65022c
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Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.
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inspirational
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James Baldwin |
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82859c5
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There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain.
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pain
suffering
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James Baldwin |
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ae5e253
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People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.
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James Baldwin |
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8519297
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You don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.
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James Baldwin |
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7d2740f
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It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I'd been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.
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self-love
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James Baldwin |
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fc1d141
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Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity
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James Baldwin |
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93f6870
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If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
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religion
love
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James Baldwin |
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ead505d
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Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
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James Baldwin |
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f75db62
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Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore
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youth
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James Baldwin |
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006492c
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For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.
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James Baldwin |
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86e9e9c
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For I am--or I was--one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. 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. Their decisions are not really decisions at all--a real decision makes one humble, one knows..
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virtue
personality
world
life
pride
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James Baldwin |
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448b72e
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Tell me, he said, "What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. what are they waiting for?" "Well [...] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel." "And when you have waited---has it made you sure?"
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time
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James Baldwin |
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c40b043
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Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
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racism
love
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James Baldwin |
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53a0f61
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I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.
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James Baldwin |
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484f2b0
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The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.
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leopold-senghor
connection
perception
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James Baldwin |
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4ed87bc
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Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed..
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James Baldwin |
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41d3f4d
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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.
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James Baldwin |
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00a556d
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Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
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James Baldwin |
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e601e58
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If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody.
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love
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James Baldwin |
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86a5a67
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Somebody," said Jacques, "your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the oddest places! - for the lack of it." --
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James Baldwin |
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794aa94
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Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.
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sex
race
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James Baldwin |
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cdcc589
|
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..
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James Baldwin |
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09e9848
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Many have given up. They stay home and watch the TV screen, living on the earnings of their parents, cousins, bothers, or uncles, and only leave the house to go to the movies or to the nearest bar. "How're you making it?" on may ask, running into them along the block, or in the bar. "Oh, I'm TV-ing it"; with the saddest, sweetest, most shamefaced of smiles, and from a great distance. This distance one is compelled to respect; anyone who has..
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giving-up
apathy
escapism
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James Baldwin |
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4be6f82
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If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save. But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to hav..
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James Baldwin |
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42c6ebb
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Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
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James Baldwin |
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f6fc8a1
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I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.
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existential
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James Baldwin |
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3557430
|
To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.
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life
mindfulness
sensuality
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James Baldwin |
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2c84f6b
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The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the wor..
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myths
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James Baldwin |
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f9f51ad
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how can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should?
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James Baldwin |
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67d01ba
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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.
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James Baldwin |
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0304166
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People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget.
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James Baldwin |
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ab87c63
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them -- to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it. That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That's very important. If you don't forgive yourself you'll never be able to forgive anybody else and you'll go on committing the same crimes forever.
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James Baldwin |
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8f7a38c
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The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.
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cowardice
evil
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James Baldwin |
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2693a5e
|
And this was perhaps the first time in my life that death occurred to me as a reality. I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act. I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it ..
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suicide
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James Baldwin |
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108eba8
|
Passion is not friendly. It is arrogant, superbly contemptuous of all that is not itself, and, as they very definition of passion implies the impulse to freedom, it has a might
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James Baldwin |
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5d54dc6
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The impossible is the least that one can demand.
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James Baldwin |
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7cdcbdc
|
I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophica..
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James Baldwin |
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1af824c
|
You do not,' cried Giovanni, sitting up, 'love anyone! You never have loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity, you love your mirror--you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver, rubies, maybe diamonds down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it--man or woman. You want to be ..
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James Baldwin |