The moral authority in the ...

The moral authority in the Western world is gone. And it is gone forever. It is gone, not because of the criminal record--everybody\'s record is criminal. It is gone because you cannot do one thing and pretend you\'re doing another! None of us, who are sitting around in some of the true limbo out-of-space, which we call \
The moral authority in the Western world is gone. And it is gone forever. It is gone, not because of the criminal record--everybody's record is criminal. It is gone because you cannot do one thing and pretend you're doing another! None of us, who are sitting around in some of the true limbo out-of-space, which we call "now," waiting to be saved, civilized, or discovered, have the moral authority to say anything.
 James A. Baldwin

Quotes from the same author

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
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 James A. Baldwin
There was no room in God's army for the coward heart, no crown awaiting him who put mother or father, sister or brother, sweetheart or friend above God's will. Let the church cry amen to this!
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 James A. Baldwin
Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle.
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 James A. Baldwin
The purpose of education...is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.
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 James A. Baldwin
In my case, I think my exile saved my life, for it inexorably confirmed something which Americans appear to have great difficulty accepting. Which is, simply, this: a man is not a man until he is able and willing to accept his own vision of the world, no matter how radically this vision departs from others.
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 James A. Baldwin