Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
- Topic: Pain
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from James Baldwin
Read, read, read. Never stop reading. And when you can't read anymore… write.
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.
The only way to live, is knowing you’re going to die. If you're afraid to die, you'll never be able to live.
You write in order to change the world…the world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimetre the way people look at reality, then you change it.
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
The longer I live, the more deeply l learn that love - whether we call it friendship or family or romance is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light.
More on Pain
The wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
If you feel pain, you're alive. If you feel other people's pain, you're a human being.
We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
Oh! poverty is a weary thing, 'tis full of grief and pain; it keepeth down the soul of man, as with an iron chain.
The growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and . . . each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement.
