James A. Baldwin
James A. Baldwin
James A. "Jim" Baldwinwas an American football player, track athlete, coach of football, basketball, and baseball, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Rhode Island State College—now the University of Rhode Island, the University of Maine, Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina—now Duke University, Lehigh University, and Wake Forest University, compiling a career college football record of 41–32–14. Baldwin was also the head basketball coach at the same five schools, amassing a career college basketball...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth2 August 1924
CountryUnited States of America
To hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first . . . acceptance totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are [;] . . . the second . . . that one must never, in one's life, accept . . . injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength.
Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him-he may be forced to-but nothing will efface his origins, the marks of which he carries with him everywhere. I think it is important to know this and even find it a matter for rejoicing, as the strongest people do, regardless of their station. On this acceptance, literally, the life of a writer depends.
Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
Not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour--and in the oddest places!--for the lack of it.
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in
Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
To defend one's self against fear is simply to ensure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.
Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance.
Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance.
Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break forth from one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out
No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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.