787 Quotes by James Baldwin

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

If all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination.

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel.

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Yet one must also recognize that morality is based on ideas and that all ideas are dangerous – dangerous because ideas can only lead to action and where the action leads no man can say.

I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?

The world sees what it wishes to see, or, when the chips are down, what you tell it to see: it does not wish to see who, or what, or why you are.

John’s heart was hardened against the Lord. His father was God’s minister, the ambassador of the King of Heaven, and John could not bow before the throne of grace without first kneeling to his father.