Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.

—James Baldwin

knowledge safety identity change world

About James Baldwin

Portrait of James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain has been ranked by Time magazine as one of the top...

More quotations from James Baldwin

There is no music like that music, no drama like the drama of the saints rejoicing, the sinners moaning, the tambourines racing, and all those voices coming together and crying holy unto the Lord.… I have never seen anything to equal the fire and excitement that sometimes, without warning, fill a church, causing the church, as Leadbelly and so many others have testified, to "rock.

—James Baldwin

sin music church excitement drama rock and roll

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

—James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time

pain hatred reasons

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

—James Baldwin

children elders imitation

Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in a personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.

—James Baldwin

love life fear knowledge happiness growth daring

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.

—James Baldwin

alone art artist

More quotations tagged with “world”

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

world nature interconnection

Stop thinking this is all there is.… Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental devastation and bogus Iraqi attack plan, there are a thousand counter-balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral.… Resist the temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake your head and sigh and just throw in the karmic towel.… Realize that this is the perfect moment to change the energy of the world, to step right up and crank your personal volume; right when it all seems dark and bitter and offensive and acrimonious and conflicted and bilious… there's your opening. Remember magic. And, finally, believe you are part of a groundswell, a resistance, a seemingly small but actually very, very large impending karmic overhaul, a great shift, the beginning of something important and potent and unstoppable.

—Mark Morford

war humanity beauty religion change world art temptation generosity magic resistance environment fatalism

In this world, you must be a bit too kind to be kind enough.

—Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

The world only goes round by misunderstanding.

—Charles Baudelaire

understanding world misunderstanding

If all the rich men in the world divided up their money amongst themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go round.

—Christina Stead

enough world money wealth greed sufficiency

History

3 Dec 2014 Added