787 Quotes by James Baldwin

You write in order to change the world.

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.

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.

I can’t be a pessimist because I am alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So, I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive, whatever we must survive.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

People are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks. But an itemized account of the American failure does not console me and it should not console anyone else.

When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.

Recognizing a problem doesn’t always bring a solution, but until we recognize that problem, there can be no solution.

Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.