The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember t… - James Baldwin

Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity

Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.

The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

One of the reasons, for example, I think that our youth is so badly educated and it is inconceivably badly educated-is because education demands a certain daring, a certain independence of mind. You have to teach some people to think; and in order to teach some people to think, you have to teach them to think about everything. There mustn't be something they can not think about. If there is one thing they can not think about, very shortly they can't think about anything.

You don't realize that you're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.