James Baldwin Quotes

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

Those who have by an unrighteous power made merchandise of the earth, giving all to some, & none to others, declare themselves tyranicall & usurping.

My nature is that when I see abuses of power, I want to expose those abuses.

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

I think people should be angry at things that are worthy of anger. Injustice is outrageous and deserves outrage.

The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice.

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime - namely, repressive justice.

Those who exercise power always arrange matters so as to give their tyranny the appearance of justice.

… injustice breeds injustice

… cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement.

Instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. "Might makes right," and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies.

I've been in revolt for years against ignominy, against injustice, against inequality, against immorality, against the exploitation of human beings.

I don't have general views about anything, except social injustice.

INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.

But after the spirit of conquest had changed the first governments, all the succeeding ones have, in general, proved one continued series of injustice, which has reigned in all countries for almost four thousand years.

Whoever is content with the world, and who profits from its lack of justice, does not want to change it.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

A fair observer only has to ask: If there is violence, who profits?

See, justice is a joke in this country, and it stinks of its hypocricy.

There is no justice in social justice, and there is no equality in social equality.

Every generation witnesses atrocities. People in power try to fulfill prophecy.

The world is an enormous injustice.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

The glaring injustice is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see.

Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste.