When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living. – James Baldwin
Words like freedom, justice, democracy are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply. – James Baldwin
The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land. – James Baldwin
I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself. – James Baldwin
There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition. – Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), translated from French by George H. Calvert, 1