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"In any event, the sloppy and fatuous nature of American good will can never be relied upon to deal with hard problems. These have been dealt with, when they have been dealt with at all, out of necessity-and in political terms, anyway, necessity means concessions made in order to stay on top."
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"Either cry for exchanging new currency notes for couple of days or crib for corruption for ages and generations with old one. Choice is yours."
"Development has to be achieved collectively and it has to be quick paced and inclusive."
"One obvious palliative of the evils of democracy in its present form would be to encourage much more publicity and initiative on the part of civil servants. They ought to have the right, and, on occasion, the duty, to frame Bills in their own names, and set forth publicly the arguments in their favor."
"Politics devoid of ethics does not further human welfare, and life without morality reduces humans to the level of beasts."
"If you want to govern the people,You must place yourself below them.If you want to lead people,You must learn how to follow them."
"Anarchy is law and freedom without force.Despotism is law and force without freedom.Barbarism force without freedom and law.Republicanism is force with freedom and law."
"I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln - just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it."
"Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders."
"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil."
"The absence of even rough agreement on the facts puts every opinion on equal footing and therefore eliminates the basis for thoughtful compromise. It rewards not those who are right, but those - like the White House press office - who can make their arguments most loudly, most frequently, most obstinately, and with the best backdrop."
Explore more quotes by James Baldwin
"The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly."
"The paradox of education is precisely this; that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated."
"She fitted in my arms, she always had, and the shock of holding her caused me to feel that my arms had been empty since she had been away."
"The question of identity is a question involving the most profound panic-a terror as primary as the nightmare of the mortal fall."
"Then the door is before him. There is darkness all around him, there is silence in him. Then the door opens and he stands alone, the whole world falling away from him. And the brief corner of the sky seems to be shrieking, though he does not hear a sound. Then the earth tilts, he is thrown forward on his face in darkness, and his journey begins."
"Ultimately, the artist and the revolutionary function as they function, and pay whatever dues they must pay behind it because they are both possessed by a vision, and they do not so much follow this vision as find themselves driven by it. Otherwise, they could never endure, much less embrace, the lives they are compelled to lead."
"The necessity, then, of those "lesser breeds without the law-those wogs, barbarians, niggers-is this: one must not become more free, not become more base than they: must not be used as they are used, nor yet use them as their abandonment allows one to use them: therefore, they must be civilized. But, when they are civilized, they may simply "spuriously imitate [the civilizer] back again, leaving the civilizer with no satisfaction on which to rest."
"Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundation."
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