James Baldwin Quotes

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

First he appeared in the class of inorganic things,
Next he passed therefrom into that of plants,
For years he lived as one of the plants,
Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different,
And when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state
He had no remembrance of his state as a plant.

Real artists ship.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

Schultz: You must speak.
Jewish barber: I can't.
Schultz: It's our only hope.

For this too is a very pleasant strand woven into the Cynic's pattern of life; he must needs be flogged like an ass, and while he is being flogged he must love the men who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of them all.

[W]hen the President's visitors came to Guinea, we were all called on to go and entertain them. I've never seen a country that did what Sékou Touré did for artists. Even in South Africa today we are not nurtured like that.

It is that wind it is that voice buzzing it is whispering and whistling in the wires miles upon miles upon miles on the wires in the wind in the subway track in the rolling road in the not silent bush it is the voice of the noise here it comes the Third World Express they must say, here we go again.

I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.

I encouraged the leadership in its time of weakness. Now that they are strong, I'm allowed not to applaud. If a Palestinian state is established, I will be in the opposition. That's my natural place.

How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?

We must not contradict, but instruct him that contradicts us; for a madman is not cured by another running mad also.

The virtuous who are prosperous must be exalted, and the virtuous who are not prosperous must be exalted too.

A fixed mindset, creates a tendency to avoid challenges, to ignore useful negative feedback and leads such people to plateau early and not achieve their full potential.

Fewer people are bent from hard work than are crooked from avoiding it.