Philosophy Quote by James Baldwin — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act.”

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

“Of course, I must say that I don't think America is God's gift to anybody--if it is, God's days have”

“It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-- ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.”

“Men--not just babies like you, but old men, too--they always need a woman to tell them the truth.”

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

“You cannot be remade unless you are first broken.”

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, "Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?" ...Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, "We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand word essay.”

“Nothing was ordinary, since nothing had ever happened to me.”

“Truth can be intuited even when it cannot be articulated in language. Such intuition is rooted in our broader obfuscated mind, which can apprehend - in symbolic ways - aspects of reality beyond the grasp of our self-reflective thoughts and perceptions.”

“Life is a complex”

“I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.”