Prejudice Quotes

Stereotype threat, then, is one way our national history seeps into our daily lives. That history leaves us with stereotypes about groups in our society that can be used to judge us as individuals when we're in situations where those stereotypes apply - in the seat next to a black person on an airplane or interacting with minority students, for example. The white person in that situation will not want to be seen in terms of the stereotype of whites as racially insensitive. And the black person, for his or her part, will not want to be seen in terms of the stereotypes about blacks as aggressive, or as too easily seeing prejudice, and so on. Fighting off these possible perceptions on a long airline flight - or more famously, perhaps, in a school cafeteria - could be more than either party wants to take on. They just want to have lunch or get to Cleveland. Avoidance becomes the simplest solution. ~ Claude M. Steele

We neither of us perform to strangers. ~ Jane Austen

Love has no form, no color and is certainly not prejudice or judgmental. ~ Matthew Donnelly

Perhaps no two events ever united so intimately and forceably to combat and expel prejudice, as the Revolution of America, and the Alliance with France. Their effects are felt, and their influence already extends as well to the old world as the new. Our style and manner of thinking have undergone a revolution, more extraordinary than the political revolution of the country. We see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used. ~ Thomas Paine

The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case. ~ Aristotle.

That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them. ~ Eric Hoffer

Bias and prejudice make me angry ... more than anything. ~ Rod Serling

What's it like here?
There's a biscuit factory next door. We get the broken ones. ~ Hiedi Thomas Jennifer Worth

Murdered by a kind of fear that seeks to obliterate any evidence that the world is different from the way they want to see it, from the way they want to believe it to be. ~ Lana Wachowski

As I hope this list of "integration concerns" illustrates, not every identity threat comes from prejudiced people. Think about O'Connor on the Supreme Court before Ginsburg. Many of the contingencies she dealt with had little to do with prejudice among her fellow justices or her staff. Some of them may have been prejudiced, but her problems went beyond that: a Court that was dominated by male sensibilities and referents and that was less sensitive, in its functioning, to the perspectives of women; no critical mass of women with which to give her a sense of belonging on the Court; negative stereotypes about women in the larger society and in the legal world that were available for use in judging her work; the fact that her being the only woman on the Court made her the sole representative of her sex in each Court decision; and so on. O'Connor would have had to deal with these things even if there hadn't been an iota of sexism in any of the people she worked with. ~ Claude M. Steele

Speak for yourself. Only rank ignorance measures a man by appearances. ~ Janny Wurts

Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Prejudice is the pinnacle of self injected ignorance. It enables poor choices to be pre-chosen. ~ Tom Althouse

Elizabeth laughed and pushed her father's shoulder. "Go, Papa, and be kind to him. I love him so. And it would be to your advantage to be on his good side."
Mr. Bennet raised his eyebrows. "Oh, and why is that?"
Because I have seen both his libraries in London and at Pemberley, Papa."
Interested and amused, Mr. Bennet said, "Ahh, and are they very grand, Lizzy?"
A more exquisite sight you will not see," she assured him. ~ KaraLynne Mackrory

Even god doesn't propose to judge a man till his last days, why should you and I? ~ Dale Carnegie

If people are innately saddled with certain sins and flaws, like selfishness, prejudice, sort-sightedness, and self-deception, then political reform would seem to be a waste of time. ~ Steven Pinker

Anything that elicits an immediate nod of recognition has only reconfirmed a prejudice. ~ Don Paterson

It is impossible to read through the reports in the Communist Press without realizing that they are consciously aimed at a public ignorant of the facts and have no other purpose than to work up prejudice. ~ George Orwell

The human egg is a Mrs. Bennet, desperate to marry off her daughters ... It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sperm must be in want of a matching strand of DNA. ~ Daryl Gregory

[...] prejudice doesn't go away just because a law changes. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Any community that remains an abstraction is an easy target for prejudice and cruelty, but any community that becomes fully humanized is much harder to treat in that way. ~ Andrew Solomon

Like my heart and like my soul, it continues to live every day, because my heart and soul are in it. And my heart and soul is your heart and soul. I am Santiago the shepherd boy in search of my treasure, just as you are Santiago the shepherd boy in search of your own. The story of one person is the story of everyone, and one man's quest is the quest of all of humanity, which is why I believe The Alchemist continues all these years later to resonate with people from different cultures all around the world, touching them emotionally and spiritually, equally, without prejudice. ~ Paulo Coelho

I want to make a summing up, brief and to the point, but thorough. I have never suppressed a word in my books out of regard for other people and their prejudices. ~ John Henry Mackay

I have only one prejudice in horseflesh - I do not like a white one. ~ Ernest Thompson Seton

The Iraq War marked the beginning of the end of network news coverage. Viewers saw the juxtaposition of the embedded correspondents reporting the war as it was actually unfolding and the jaundiced, biased, negative coverage of these same events in the network newsrooms. ~ Dick Morris

Rhythm and blues started even before phonograph records were being produced because black people entertained themselves. It wasn't done for money. It was done for entertainment. Most white people didn't know anything about this because prejudice kept them from ever seeing what was going on. ~ Jesse Stone

Whether in private debate or in public, any attempt I made to explain how the Black Muslim movement came about, and how it has achieved such force, was met with a blankness that revealed the little connection that the liberals' attitudes have with their perceptions or their lives, or even their knowledge - revealed, in fact, that they could deal with the Negro as a symbol or a victim but had no sense of him as a man. ~ James Baldwin

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking ... ~ Leo Tolstoy

Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for. ~ George Washington

Where there is no understanding there is hostility.
Where there is no brotherhood there is enmity.
Where there is no war there is serenity.
Where there is no abundance there is scarcity.
Where there is no shortage there is sufficiency.
Where there is no wealth there is poverty.
Where there is no greed there is humanity.
Where there is no falsehood there is integrity.
Where there is no prejudice there is diversity.
Where there is no tolerance there is bigotry.
Where there is no injustice there is equality.
Where there is no law there is disharmony.
Where there is no freedom there is slavery.
Where there is no order there is disharmony.
Where there is no government there is anarchy.
Where there is no republic there is tyranny. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I read with interest Max Muller's book, India - What Can It Teach Us? and the translation of the Upanishads published by the Theosophical Society. All this enhanced my regard for Hinduism, and its beauties began to grow upon me. It did not, however, prejudice me against other religions. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I've always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. There's no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word. ~ Shannon Hale

The colonel laughed, effectively halting Bingley's speech. "Uncharacteristically reclusive? Do we speak if the same man? Darcy's very character is defined by his reclusiveness! He prefers to keep his own counsel, especially when he ought to do the opposite - the bacon-brained buffoon. ~ KaraLynne Mackrory

The bottom line is the driver was twenty to twenty-five years older than the robbery suspect. Both husband and wife were college- educated, middle-class American citizens, like you and me."
"Except that they were black, and we are not," Jennifer states the obvious. ~ Mark M. Bello

I went to the States with that amount of prejudice which seems the birthright of every English person, but I found that, under the knowledge of the Americans which can be attained by a traveller mixing in society in every grade, these prejudices gradually melted away. ~ Isabella Bird

Witches, warlocks, gremlins, orgres - they're just words,labels. Haven't you noticed that when people are labelled, their faces disappear? ~ Anna Fienberg

Knowledge-it excites prejudices to call it science-is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

He had just reached the time of life at which 'young' is ceasing to be the prefix of 'man' in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine life, for his intellect and emotions were clearly separate; he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the state wherin they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family.In short he was twenty-eight and a bachelor. ~ Thomas Hardy

It's an universal law
intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The community knows that the fundamental questions of life can only be looked at in a spirit of peace and inner freedom. Nobody can force anyone else to love and to walk to freedom. Militants for a cause will tend to be organized for a struggle which they hope to win; they will seek to impose their way aggressively. Frequently they seek outward change more than inward change.

. . . As long as there are fears and prejudices in the human heart, there will be war and bitter injustice. It is only when hearts are healed, and become loving and open, that the great political problems will be solved. . . . As fears and prejudices diminish, and trust in God and others grows, the community can radiate and witness to a style and quality of life which will bring a solution to the troubles of our world.

The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace in community, through acceptance of others as they are, and through constant forgiveness, is to work for peace in the world and for true political solutions; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. ~ Jean Vanier

I have a prejudice against people with money. I have known so many, and none have escaped the corruption of power. In this I am a purist. I love people motivated by love and not by power. If you have money and power, and are motivated by love, you give it all away. ~ Anais Nin

Their prejudice allowed white Southerners to look the other way when blacks were denied their most basic human rights, and it encouraged the worst of them to engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence. ~ Linda Chavez

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong. ~ Muhammad Ali

The act of writing should not be accompanied by the sense of an audience, someone peering over your shoulder, but in nonfiction I think it's almost imperative that you identify an audience so you can confirm or challenge or undermine whatever ideas or prejudices they might have about your subject. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Unlock joy in any situation!
True understanding and mutual respect do not bridge blames, destructive, negative criticisms, false excuses and gossips. To express disappointments and ill-feelings are normal however to gossip around certain people and events in order to put another person down and destroy one's credibility is a form of bullying whether one expresses it publicly or privately.
Beware of segregation, regionalism, individualism, discrimination, stereotyping, destructive criticism, false accusations, biased wrong assumptions, prejudice, senseless comparison and unwanted competition because life is much more meaningful to live for where there is unity and harmony. ~ Angelica Hopes

I am groping about through this American forest of prejudice and proscription, determined to find some form of civilization where all men will be accepted for what they are worth. ~ P.B.S. Pinchback

I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality ... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice. ~ Clarence Thomas

It is time to reverse this prejudice against conscious effort and to see the powers we gain through practice and discipline as eminently inspiring and even miraculous. ~ Robert Greene

A photograph is a mirror; mostly it reflects the prejudices of the viewer. ~ Bill Jay

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again. ~ Jane Austen

Fat-bashing in all its varied forms–criticism, exclusion, shaming, fat talk, self-deprecation, jokes, gossip, bullying–is one of the last acceptable forms of prejudice. From a very young age, before they can walk away or defend themselves, women are taught that they are how they look, not what they do or what they know. (1) ~ Robyn Silverman

When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance. ~ David Brin

Over and above the political, economic, sociological, and international implications of racial prejudices, their major significance is that they place unnecessary burdens upon human beings. ~ Kenneth Clark

Our prejudices, our antipathies, are our natural defenses against what we could not assimilate. ~ Natalie Clifford Barney

Prejudice is even stronger in the hearts of men now than in Christ's day. ~ Ellen G. White

I saw the man my friendwants pardoned, Thomas Flinton. He is a bright, good-looking fellow ... Of his innocence all are confident. The governor strikes me as a man seeking popularity, who lacks the independence and manhood to do right at the risk of losing popularity. Afraid of what will be said. He is prejudiced against the Irish and Democrats. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes

My personal convictions drive me to join those like-minded, in the recruitment of a growing army without guns, no hatred or prejudice, but with a leadership voice of influence and harnessing resources to create the change they desire. The major problems facing the world, particularly our beloved African continent, will not be won by sanctions, cruelty, ethnic cleansing, revenge, guns or bullets. The challenges are not largely externally motivated, so the platform to change them must shift. Shift from selfish to selfless, from external to internal, from behaviours to beliefs. Some of them are externally sponsored but self-inflicted, whilst most of them are due to greed, short-sightedness, abuse and selfishness. ~ Archibald Marwizi

You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer. ~ Jane Austen

There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't. ~ Neil Gaiman

So what do you think, Miss Bennet? Will you come to Pemberley?" He Spoke quietly over her shoulder; she hadn't realized he was so close. Feeling a mischievous impulse, likely from her nervousness at his proximity, she said the first thing that came to her mind.
"It is tolerable, I suppose, but not hadsome enough to tempt me."
Mr. Darcy's face went from shocked and angry, to hurt and confused, and finally to understanding as her words sunk in. ~ Elizabeth Adams

I came from a lot of intolerance and prejudice, which aren't necessarily healthy to evolve as a human. ~ Katy Perry

This made my father laugh. 'Mary made a cake, did she? Well, well. Better that than she should make a cake for herself, I suppose.'
Peter then burst out: 'Why must you always be making a game of Mary? 'Tis not fair; 'tis not sporting. ~ Jennifer Paynter

People who label erotica writers as sluts/men-whores remind me of the mob that once condemned smart women as witches. Mankind has not evolved much. ~ Anna Bayes

There are a lot of people in Beverly Hills who come from the Middle East, who are very much a part of the Beverly Hills fabric, and their kids grew up with the privileges of Beverly Hills. And yet they still have to deal with a lot of the prejudice against them for being foreign-born. ~ Amy Heckerling

A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment. ~ Edward Gibbon

For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices. ~ Audre Lorde

Color had been made the mark of enslavement and was taken to be also the mark of inferiority; for prejudice does not reason, or it would not be prejudice ... If prejudice could reason, it would dispel itself. ~ William Pickens

He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator, in the especial nobility of dogs, all dogs, in the oracles of S. Parkes Cadman, in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, and in Henry Ford (when he became President, he exulted, maybe he could get Mr. Ford to come to supper at the White House), and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars. He regarded spats, walking sticks, caviar, titles, tea-drinking, poetry not daily syndicated in newspapers and all foreigners, possibly excepting the British, as degenerate. ~ Sinclair Lewis

We Pashtuns love shoes but don't love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the Taliban - to finally achieve status and power. ~ Malala Yousafzai

Prejudice and Bias The gospel presents the contrasting images of the log versus the splinter (v. 41). Any truly wise teacher or preacher must beware of personal prejudices, namely, the log in his or her own eye that can limit or even twist the message. Sometimes catechists and preachers simply expound their own prejudices rather than the truth of the Gospel or the authentic teaching of the church. Sometimes scholars teach what is in their eyelashes rather than what is in the text! Anytime we find ourselves surprised in a new situation, we should look inward because the very fact of surprise may indicate a prejudice or at least a presumption in the face of something unexpected. The "expected" could be the prejudice. ~ Richard Sklba

Darkness prevails only in the absence of light. Light a candle and the darkness disappears. ~ Abhijit Naskar

A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual; subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments. And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power. ~ John Adams

Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated. ~ Kofi Annan

No offense, kid, but I have a strong desire to murder your uncle with extreme prejudice." "No offense taken," I said. "I'm tempted to help you. ~ Rick Riordan

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging. ~ William Hazlitt

Sharpe is my favorite role of all that I've played. He's a very complex character. He knows that he's a good soldier, but he will always have to fight the prejudice of aristocratic officers because of his rough working-class upbringing. On the battlefield, he's full of confidence - but off it, he is unsure, a bit shy and ill at ease. ~ Sean Bean

So, why the traffic stop when the officer admits that the driver did nothing wrong? To this impartial observer, those facts suggest Mr. Hayes was pulled over for driving while black and the shooting was the worst result of a bad stop. ~ Mark M. Bello

A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow mindedness. ~ Nelson Mandela

To those supremacist racists I ask what color will be their bodies when they turn to dust. ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

You think ghosts and witches and vampires and ghosts and two-headed monsters are bad. Why? Do you know what that is, David? It's prejudice. Racial prejudice! ~ Anthony Horowitz

No more unnerving than Christians praying at the feet of a man nailed to a cross, or Hindus chanting in front of a four-armed elephant named Ganesh. Misunderstanding a culture's symbols is a common root of prejudice. ~ Dan Brown

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Marcus tries to stay calm for the sake of his family.
"I'm not asking. Step out of the damned car!" The officer is becoming unglued.
"I'm getting out, damn you, but, here, let me just show you my - "
"Don't reach. Stop!"
"I'm getting what you asked for, just going to show you my - "
"Put your hands where I can see them!" The officer snarls.
"Jesus H. Christ, officer. I'm not - "
Thunderous shots ring out, and Marcus slumps away from the dash, back toward the driver's seat. ~ Mark M. Bello

If man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog. ~ Robert Breault

The worst effect of party is its tendency to generate narrow, false, and illiberal prejudices, by teaching the adherents of one party to regard those that belong to an opposing party as unworthy of confidence. ~ Dorothea Brande

When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue. ~ Madame De Stael

Our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice. ~ Barack Obama

They that never peeped beyond the common belief in which their easy understandings were at first indoctrinated are strongly assured of the truth of their receptions. ~ Joseph Glanvill

There are more than straight good and evil, aye, even more than law or disorders or fence-sittin'. There's prejudice, whimsey, affection, superstition, habit, upbringing, alliance, pride, society, morals, animosity, preference, values, religon, circumstance, humor, perversity, honor, vengeance, jealousy, frustration ... hundreds o' factors, from the past and in every present moment, as decides what some one person'll do in an individious situation. ~ Eve Forward Villains By Necessity

What is surprising, even deeply disturbing, is the way that many individuals who consider themselves democratic, even-handed, rational, and free of prejudice, hold on tenaciously to a standard language ideology which attempts to justify restriction of individuality and rejection of the Other ~ Rosina Lippi-Green

Outrun the people who quit when they feel discomfort, outrun the people who stop because of despair, outrun the people who are delayed because of prejudice, outrun the people who surrender to failure, and outrun the opponent who loses sight of the goal. Because if you want to win, the will can never retire, the race can never stop, and faith can never weaken. ~ Muhammad Ali

he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, ~ Thomas Hardy

Business people - Your business - is your greatest prejudice: it ties you to your locality, to the company you keep, to the inclinations you feel. Diligent in business - but indolent in spirit, content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty hung over this contentment: that is how you live, that is how you want your children to live! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The arrogance of race prejudice is an arrogance which defies what is scientifically known of human races. ~ Ruth Benedict

Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done. ~ Jane Austen

It is only common prejudice that induces us to believe that atheism is a fearful state. ~ Pierre Bayle

She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man. ~ Jane Austen

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Dissmell is the affect that monitors our drive for hunger. It was primarily developed as a survival mechanism. As we've become more complex, its use has extended interpersonally. Prejudice and rage against strangers (the ones who are not like us) have terrible consequences. Dissmell is a major sexuality factor. Disgust follows the same pattern as dissmell. Originally a hunger drive auxiliary, it has been extended to interpersonal relations. Divorces are often dominated by disgust. Victims of abuse carry various degrees of anger and disgust. Rapists who kill operate on disgust, anger and sex fused together. ~ John Bradshaw

One thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students' achievement when they succeed is really only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance to even try. It is the same prejudice that insists all those destined for success must be cast from the same mold as those who have succeeded before them, a view that experience has already proven a fallacy. ~ Sonia Sotomayor