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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

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More quotes by James Baldwin

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961)

All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.

Notes of a Native Son (1955)

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others.

Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961)

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.

Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961)

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What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

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Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

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There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Baldwin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.