It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.
James A. BaldwinRead
Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty...the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent humanity, the mark of cruelty.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sentimentality often hides true emotions and can be a sign of dishonesty.
James A. Baldwin's quote suggests that excessive sentimentality is not a true expression of emotion but rather a facade for deeper, often darker feelings. The wet eyes of a sentimentalist reflect more about their inability to confront reality and their deep-seated fears, indicating that what lies beneath this emotional display can be cruelty rather than genuine compassion.
Themes
SentimentalityEmotionDishonestyFearExperience
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the authenticity of emotions in literature.
More from James A. Baldwin
All quotes →The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.
James A. BaldwinRead
Those kids aren't dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don't get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.
James A. BaldwinRead
Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.
James A. BaldwinRead
The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.
James A. BaldwinRead
The trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
James A. BaldwinRead
Similar quotes
I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns, but not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else — what do they look to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?
Peter S. BeagleRead
With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will - and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.
Gene RoddenberryRead
The dead walk among us. Zombies, ghouls-no matter what their label-these somnambulists are the greatest threat to humanity, other than humanity itself.
Max BrooksRead
Life is a disease, brother, and death begins already at birth. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a moment of dying - a little shove toward the end.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead