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
Be careful what you set your heart upon — for it will surely be yours. – James Baldwin
The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. – James Baldwin
James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare– but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them. – James Baldwin
Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man–yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it. – Marcus Antonius