“There are people in the world for whom "coming along" is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.”

— James Baldwin, book Go Tell It on the Mountain

Source: Go Tell It on the Mountain

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There are people in the world for whom "coming along" is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive." by James Baldwin?

James Baldwin163

(1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924–1987

Related quotes

“We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

“Christmas turns things last end foremost. The people whom the world arranges last in its procession — the weary, the poor, the foolish, the lame, the halt, the blind — these are the ones who come at the very head of the column in the consideration of the Little Child who leads.”

Halford E. Luccock (1885–1960) American Methodist minister

Source: Fares, Please! (1915), Everything Upside Down, p. 187
Context: Christmas turns things last end foremost. The people whom the world arranges last in its procession — the weary, the poor, the foolish, the lame, the halt, the blind — these are the ones who come at the very head of the column in the consideration of the Little Child who leads. The last, the least, the lost — how often those words were on Jesus's lips — the three great objects of his passion! It is not the world's idea of correct form. … most of us unconsciously arrange our acquaintances or possible acquaintances in the order of what advantage they may be to us. Jesus reverses the whole scheme as a perversion and sets up a new basis of classification. His question is not, What can this man do for me? but What can I do for him? The most important person for us to know, he tells us both by word and example, is the one who needs us most. "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

“True' and 'false' are the evasions of people who never want to arrive at a decision. Truth is something without end.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

Source: The Man Without Qualities

“Sir, very few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may arrive at that destination I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/jan/22/address-in-answer-to-the-speech in the House of Commons (22 January 1846). <br class="br">1840s