

“The wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.”
Traced to Notes of a Native Son (1955).
More from James Baldwin
“People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.”
James Baldwin
No Name in the Street · 1972
verified“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
James Baldwin
Notes of a Native Son · 1955
verified“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
James Baldwin
The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy · 1961
verified“Artists are here to disturb the peace.”
James Baldwin
An Interview with James Baldwin · 1961
verified“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.”
James Baldwin
The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman · 1960
verified“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”
James Baldwin
In Search of a Majority · 1960
verifiedMore Perseverance quotes
“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.”
Helen Keller
The Simplest Way to be Happy · 1933
verified“No doubt the reason is that character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
Helen Keller
Helen Keller's Journal · 1938
verified“Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.”
Helen Keller
We Bereaved · 1929
verified“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
You Learn by Living · 1960
verified“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Harijan · 1947
verified“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
Mahatma Gandhi
The Doctrine of the Sword, Young India · 1920
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