Top 57 Quotes by James A. Baldwin

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

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

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

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.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.