Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings. -James A. Baldwin Hope
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. -James A. Baldwin Work
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. -James A. Baldwin Good
I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. -James A. Baldwin Positive
The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever. -James A. Baldwin Power
The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. -James A. Baldwin Future
I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all. -James A. Baldwin Time
Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it. -James A. Baldwin Truth
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. -James A. Baldwin History
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. -James A. Baldwin Society
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. -James A. Baldwin Future
If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. -James A. Baldwin Relationship
The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. -James A. Baldwin Education
I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. -James A. Baldwin Memorialday
It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. -James A. Baldwin Independence
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. -James A. Baldwin Fear
Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up. -James A. Baldwin War
Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks. -James A. Baldwin Work
Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did. -James A. Baldwin Money
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. -James A. Baldwin Time
