James Baldwin Quotes

A fanatic's willingness to kill or be killed in the service of a cause cannot prove the rightness of that cause.

We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all.

Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.

Once a person has killed other people on behalf of an ideology, he becomes rather devoted to it.

Religion is a strange, wonderful thing. More crimes have been committed in the name of righteousness than any other notion.

Patriotism is the religion of hell.

Man is ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.

Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.

Whoever saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind

The more people who die for our cause, the stronger we shall become.

This country will never sacrifice humanity in order to carry out any policy.

To die for faction [party] is a common evil.

Those prepared to die for the truth, as a rule make many others die with them, often before them, and at times instead of them.

Nationalism ... is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you.

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind should we serve?

Patriotism is a noble feeling insofar as it approaches that which is purely human, but the very reverse the further it is removed therefrom.

Heroes and scholars represent the opposite extremes... The scholar struggles for the benefit of all humanity, sometimes to reduce physical effort, sometimes to reduce pain, and sometimes to postpone death, or at least render it more bearable. In contrast, the patriot sacrifices a rather substantial part of humanity for the sake of his own prestige. His statue is always erected on a pedestal of ruins and corpses... In contrast, all humanity crowns a scholar, love forms the pedestal of his statues, and his triumphs defy the desecration of time and the judgment of history.

America has a genius for great unselfish deeds, and into the hands of America, God has placed an afflicted mankind.

My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

The more one forgets himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is.

For me, if I have done my duty, the continued approbation of Congress and the Marine Committee will make me rich indeed, and far more than reward me for a life of service devoted from principles of philanthropy, to support the dignity of human nature.

Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family and indeed all the suffering in the world isn't caused by any omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Humanity, perhaps, that quality of benevolence that humans have, without irony, named after themselves.

Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.