"The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide."

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More quotes from: James A. Baldwin

• "A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford ..."
• "American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone ..."
• "Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous ..."
• "Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing ..."
• "Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be ..."
• "Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. "
• "Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours. "
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• "Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black. "
• "Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is ..."
• "Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in ..."
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• "Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and ..."
• "He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure ..."
• "I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, ..."
• "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because ..."
• "I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this ..."
• "I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this ..."
• "I want to be an honest man and a good writer. "
• "I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think ..."
• "If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole ..."
• "It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious ..."
• "It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that ..."
• "It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful ..."
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• "Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, ..."
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• "No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his ..."
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• "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it ..."
• "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more ..."
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• "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. "
• "People can cry much easier than they can change. "
• "People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves ..."
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• "Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice ..."
• "Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are ..."
• "Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and ..."
• "That's the kind of ad I like, facts, facts, facts. "
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• "The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there ..."
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