Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by James Baldwin (American Novelist, Social Critic)

James Arthur Baldwin (1924–87) was an American novelist and civil-rights activist. He achieved international recognition for his bold expressions of the predicament and aspirations of African American life in the 1950s and 1960s.

Born in Harlem, New York City, Baldwin started preaching in revivalist churches at the age of 14. This experience inspired his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1954.) Baldwin wrote it with the help of the African-American writer Richard Wright. Set in Harlem, it was semi-autobiographical and became an American classic.

Go Tell It on the Mountain was followed by such novels as Giovanni’s Room (1956,) Another Country (1962,) and Just Above My Head (1979)—all deliberate both homosexuality and the condition of African Americans.

Baldwin also wrote short stories, political and autobiographical essays, and plays. The Fire Next Time (1963) was a campaigning work for the American civil rights movement. None of his other later works achieved the popular and critical success of his early work. His influence on other American artists—such as singer Nina Simone, novelist Maya Angelou, novelist Toni Morrison—whether of spirit, love, or style, is undeniable.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by James Baldwin

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
James Baldwin
Topics: Creation

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
James Baldwin
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing

As long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you. Because as long as you think you’re white, I’m forced to think I’m black.
James Baldwin

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.
James Baldwin
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writing, Writers

Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
James Baldwin
Topics: Perspective

Words like “freedom,” “justice,” “democracy” are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.
James Baldwin
Topics: Humanity

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.
James Baldwin
Topics: Forgiveness, The Present, Future, Challenges, Present, Time

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.
James Baldwin
Topics: Giving, Charity

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
James Baldwin
Topics: Respect

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.
James Baldwin
Topics: Questioning, Questions

He may be a very nice man. But I haven’t got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he’s got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That’s the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.
James Baldwin
Topics: Police, Control

Experience that destroys innocents also leads one back to it.
James Baldwin
Topics: Experience

Be careful what you set your heart upon—for it will surely be yours.
James Baldwin
Topics: Desire, Thought, Reason, Desires

James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare—but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them.
James Baldwin
Topics: History

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.
James Baldwin
Topics: Ambition, Spirit

The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.
James Baldwin
Topics: Rain, America

Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field.
James Baldwin
Topics: America

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.
James Baldwin
Topics: Pessimism

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
James Baldwin
Topics: Innocence

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
James Baldwin
Topics: Love

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
James Baldwin
Topics: Patriotism

The future is… black.
James Baldwin
Topics: The Future, Future

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.
James Baldwin
Topics: Belief

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.
James Baldwin

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.
James Baldwin
Topics: Prophecy

There is a sanctity involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.
James Baldwin
Topics: Children

People can cry much easier than they can change.
James Baldwin
Topics: Change

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
Topics: Freedom

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.
James Baldwin
Topics: Morals, Power

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
James Baldwin
Topics: Perspective

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