Top 57 Quotes by James A. Baldwin

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.

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.

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.

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

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

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

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.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.