Prejudices Quotes

Education is at present concerned with outward efficiency, and it utterly disregards, or deliberately perverts, the inward nature of man; it develops only one part of him and leaves the rest to drag along as best it can.

Our inner confusion, antagonism and fear ever overcome the outer structure of society, however nobly conceived and cunningly built. When there is not the right kind of education we destroy one another, and physical security for every individual is denied.

To educate the student rightly is to help him to understand the total process of himself; for it is only when there is integration of the mind and heart in everyday action that there can be intelligence and inward transformation.

While offering information and technical training, education should above all encourage an integrated outlook on life; it should help the student to recognize and break down in himself all social distinctions and prejudices, and discourage the acquisitive pursuit of power and domination. It should encourage the right kind of self-observation and the experiencing of life as a whole, which is not to give significance to the part, to the "me" and the "mine", but to help the mind to go above and beyond itself to discover the real.

Freedom comes into being only through self-knowledge in one's daily occupations, that is, in one's relationship with people, with things, with ideas and with nature. If the educator is helping the student to be integ ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

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

Artistic prejudices are always the most difficult to root out. Critics - whose duty should be to see beyond the pretensions of artists and the public's passing fancies - often allow themselves to be persuaded by the way authors present their work, by what they say they have achieved, or else are guided by whatever has been a wild success - usually in order to take the opposing view - and which had been damningly labelled 'popular. ~ Javier Marias

Being pretentious is rarely harmful to anyone. Accusing others of it is. You can use the word "pretentious" as a weapon with which to bludgeon other people's creative efforts, but in shutting them down the accusation will shatter in your hand and out will bleed your own insecurities, prejudices, and unquestioned assumptions. ~ Dan Fox

These people in the North-east of Ireland, from old prejudices perhaps more from anything else, from the whole of their past history, would prefer, I believe, to accept the government of a foreign country rather than submit to be governed by honourable gentlemen below the gangway [i.e. the Irish Nationalist Party]. ~ Bonar Law

Neither of my parents suffered from the little spooky prejudices that devour the people who know nothing but automobiles and movies and what's in the ice-box and what's in the papers and which neighbors are getting a divorce. ~ Thomas Merton

By applauding Robinson, a man did not feel that he was taking a stand on school integration, or on open housing. But for an instant he had accepted Robinson simply as a hometown ball player. To disregard color, even for an instant, is to step away from the old prejudices, the old hatred. That is not a path on which many double back. ~ Roger Kahn

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

For far too long, there has been a racial divide that has plagued our country. The egregious acts of discrimination and prejudices will no longer be tolerated. ~ Asa Don Brown

The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

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

But maybe it's the laboring that gives you shape. Might the most fulfilling times be those spent solo at your tasks, literally immersed or not, when you are able to uncover the smallest surprises and unlikely details of some process or operation that in turn exposes your proclivities and prejudices both? ~ Chang-rae Lee

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

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.

Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

All prejudices may be traced back to the intestines. A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Ghost. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

All our wisdom consists in servile prejudices. All our practices are only subjection, impediment, and constraint. Civil man is born, lives, and dies in slavery. At his birth he is sewed in swaddling clothes; at his death he is nailed in a coffin. So long as he keeps his human shape, he is enchained by our institutions. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

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

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

New ideas are reasonable if they can be fitted into an already familiar scheme, unreasonable if they cannot be made to fit. Our intellectual prejudices determine the channels along which our reason shall flow. ~ Aldous Huxley

Our prejudices :;we all have them are part of our personality structure. The problem is that our prejudices may lie lurking at the bottom of the subterranean mind where the slowly ooze up and color our thinking without our knowing it. ~ Gerry Spence

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

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

I wished to acquire the simplicity, native feelings, and virtues of savage life; to divest myself of the factitious habits, prejudices and imperfections of civilization; ... and to find, amidst the solitude and grandeur of the western wilds, more correct views of human nature and of the true interests of man. The season of snows was preferred, that I might experience the pleasure of suffering, and the novelty of danger. ~ Estwick Evans

It's only by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I can begin to hear something out of earshot and recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company twenty-four hours a day. ~ Pico Iyer

Is the marketing effort designed to convey the candidate's convictions, or are the convictions expressed by the candidate the reflections of a "big data" research effort into individuals' likely preferences and prejudices? ~ Henry Kissinger

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

The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices. ~ Frederick The Great

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

My mental boundaries expanded when I viewed the Earth against a black and uninviting vacuum, yet my country's rich traditions had conditioned me to look beyond man-made boundaries and prejudices. One does not have to undertake a space flight to come by this feeling. ~ Rakesh Sharma

More than illness or death, the American journalist fears standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience. Deprive William Safire of the insignia of the New York Times, and he would have a hard time selling his truths to a weekly broadsheet in suburban Duluth. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

But it is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it. Society thus brands what is unpleasant as untrue, denying the conclusions of psychoanalysis with logical and pertinent arguments. These arguments originate from affective sources, however, and society holds to these prejudices against all attempts at refutation. ~ Sigmund Freud

We must not allow the academic prejudices bred by Hegelian ideology, anti-clericalism, anti-Semitism and nineteenth-century intellectual fashions to distort our view of these texts. All the internal evidence shows that those who set down and conflated these writings, and the scribes who copied them when the canon was assembled after the return from Exile, believed absolutely in the divine inspiration of the ancient texts and transcribed them with veneration and the highest possible standards of accuracy, including many passages which they manifestly did not understand. Indeed, the Pentateuch text twice gives solemn admonitions, from God himself, against tampering: 'Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it.'25 ~ Paul Johnson

The most powerful forces in economics are not numbers or facts. They are prejudices and preferences. No amount of evidence will ever change the degree to which many of the rich and powerful prefer themselves to be richer and more powerful and others poorer and weaker. ~ Nick Hanauer

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

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

Among the other papers I bought at London Airport was the current number of The Beholder. Thought it is, I am aware, not without its merits and even well thought of in some circles, it leaves me with an abiding sense that it is more given to expressing its first prejudices than its second thoughts. Perhaps if it were to go to press a day later ... ~ John Wyndham

Jesus lives the challenge to our gender stereotypes and prejudices, but he is also wonderfully subversive in the ways he legitimates and empowers women. ~ Shane Claiborne

The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable. ~ Marquis De Sade

The mind confines our outlooks to a mere bundles of desires, pleasures, prejudices, and fears to safeguard the body it inhabits. ~ Rajeev Kurapati

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are serviley crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson ~ Richard Dawkins

Einstein's theory, experimentally corroborated for the last hundred years, regardless of how outlandish and opposed to our prejudices (disguised as they are with the 'common sense' costume), is rational, consistent, and intelligible to the layperson - if s/he has the audacity of accepting the unfounded nature of those prejudices. ~ Felix Alba-Juez

Politics' the polite word for antediluvian prejudices, the rags put on by enmity and tribal resentment. ~ Joseph O'Connor

Literary censorship should not be necessary within the parameters of the law because it's simply a reflection of prevailing social prejudices!

Writing should challenge and change prevailing ideas - churning the guts and ruffling feathers of friends, family and society. Antagonizing is a product of open writing. Expecting less is resignation and stagnation that slides the art into the status-quo.

Writing needs the wider view that shows the causality of our prevailing social prejudice - and shakes at its foundation.

Writers spare us no less and please leave your praise and oppugn to Christopher Hitchens. ~ Jack Tar

Yes, yes," he shut off her attempted objection. "You would have destroyed my writing and my career. Realism is imperative to my nature, and the bourgeois spirit hates realism. The bourgeoisie is cowardly. It is afraid of life. And all your effort was to make me afraid of life. You would have formalized me. You would have compressed me into a two-by-four pigeonhole of life, where all life's values are unreal and false and vulgar." He felt her stir protestingly. "Vulgarity
a heart of vulgarity, I'll admit
is the basis of bourgeois refinement and culture. As I say, you wanted to formalize me to make me over into one of your own class, with your class ideas, class values and class prejudices. ~ Jack London

But first let me mention the second aid to understanding provided by science. We know today that in a physical experiment the observer himself enters into the experiment and only by doing so can arrive at a physical experience. This means that there is no such thing as pure objectivity in in physics, that even here the result of the experiment, nature's answer, depends on the question put to it. In the answer there is always a bit of the question and a bit of the questioner himself; it reflects not only nature in itself, in its pure objectivity, but also gives back something of man, of what is characteristically ours, a bit of the human subject. This too, mutatis mutandis, is true of the question of God. There is no such thing as a mere observer. There is no such thing as pure objectivity. One can even say that the higher an object stands in human terms, the more it generates the center of individuality; and the more it engages the beholder's individuality, then the smaller the possibility of the mere distancing involved in pure objectivity. Thus, whenever an answer is presented as unemotionally objective, as a statement that finally goes beyond the prejudices of the pious and provides purely factual, scientific information, then it has to be said that the speaker has here fallen victim to self-deception. This kind of objectivity is quite simply denied to man. He cannot ask and exist as a mere observer. He who tries to be a mere observer experiences nothing. Even the reality ~ Benedict XVI

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. ~ Albert Einstein

When I start writing these novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters. ~ Ruth Ozeki

When an audience shares your prejudices you can always count on their applause. ~ Marty Rubin

Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn. Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world. ~ Helen Keller

Own your biases, don't be owned by them. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Through style, the creative effort reconstructs the world, and always with the same slight
distortion that is the mark of both art and protest. Whether it is the enlargement of the microscope which
Proust brings to bear on human experience or, on the contrary, the absurd insignificance with which the
American novel endows its characters, reality is in some way artificial. The creative force, the fecundity
of rebellion, are contained in this distortion which the style and tone of a work represent. Art is an
impossible demand given expression and form. When the most agonizing protest finds its most resolute
form of expression, rebellion satisfies its real aspirations and derives creative energy from this fidelity to
itself. Despite the fact that this runs counter to the prejudices of the times, the greatest style in art is the
expression of the most passionate rebellion. Just as genuine classicism is only romanticism subdued,
genius is a rebellion that has created its own limits. That is why there is no genius, contrary to what we
are taught today, in negation and pure despair. ~ Albert Camus

Men's prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong; but perhaps he is never so altogether wrong and pig-headed and utterly reprehensible as he is represented to be by those who add the possession of prejudices to the other almost insuperable difficulties of understanding him. ~ Jane Addams

Our speech accurately reflects the prejudices of the ruling group. Since the rulers and the rich and the educated (who directed language) generally lived in cities, we developed such words as "villain," which meant a rustic; "heathen" and "pagan," which also indicated those who dwelt in the country; "boor," which meant a farmer; and many other such words which downgraded rural inhabitants. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Don't think of my indifference to criticisms as weakness. I keep silent most of the times, because my response is too human to be wasted on wild animals. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The worst mistake you can make, Kroeber taught, is to see another person through the lens of your prejudices. And the second-worst mistake is to think you aren't looking though the lens of your prejudices. ~ Paul La Farge

The nature of music is mysterious and so much so that it generates strong emotions within us. It moves along passages that reach the most intimate areas of our psyche without being tried by prejudices or influences of any kind. ~ Andrea Bocelli

During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore - in part because it's fun to do. But there's a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their 'low contracted prejudices.' And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment - until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace, rather than fear, the cosmic perspective. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge. ~ Karl Popper

The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices. ~ William Hazlitt

Whether at home or abroad, the task of statesman is to work with human nature warts and all, and to draw on instincts and even prejudices that can be turned to good purpose. It is never to try to recreate Mankind in a new image. ~ Margaret Thatcher

I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common. ~ Isaac Newton

(...) one should never be too naive regarding the quality of the current philosophical culture, or imagine that the most recent thinking is in any meaningful sense more advanced or more authoritative than that of a century or a millennium or two millennia ago. There are certain perennial problems to which all interesting philosophy returns again and again; but there are no such things as logical discoveries that consign any of the older answers to obsolescence. Certain classical answers to those problems endure and recur, sometimes because they remain far more powerful than the answers (or evasions) produced by later schools of thought. And, conversely, weaker answers often enjoy greater favor than their rivals simply because they are in keeping with the prejudices of the age. ~ David Bentley Hart

prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy. And the thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children and the children yet unborn.… ~ Mamie Till-Mobley

Until the human condition could be resolved it was not safe to acknowledge the different roles men and women played in the journey to enlightenment. Over time it was found that the best way to control prejudices was to prevent acknowledgement of any substantial differences between the sexes. The dogma of politically correct culture emerged. ~ Jeremy Griffith

A person's actions could be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on who was watching. Their viewpoints were simply skewed by their beliefs, their prejudices, and their private desires. Their personal kaleidoscopes. I couldn't judge them, of course. I was the same way. ~ Kirsten Hubbard

It struck me hard that when I read and studied the Bible, I started with my own preconceived notions, prejudices, and ideas of truth. I wasn't really looking for truth. I was looking for God's confirmation of mine. ~ Van Harden

We've learned it's better to work together to create more possibilities for all, rather than cling to past prejudices. ~ Lisa Carlisle

A crisis is made by men, who enter into the crisis with their own prejudices, propensities, and predispositions. A crisis is the sum of intuition and blind spots, a blend of facts noted and facts ignored. ~ Michael Crichton

Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. ~ John Stuart Mill

Everything I had learned or assimilated from my parents I now regarded as unreliable, and needing to be rethought from scratch. In fact, I probably went further-I felt that everything my parents believed was by definition wrong, and that if I ever felt myself in agreement with my parents I should immediately recant. Everything ... needed to be jettisoned. But in a way what they said wasn't the problem: what I was more worried about was the attitudes, prejudices, beliefs I might have picked up from them subconsciously or before I was old enough to even know what I was learning. Effectively, I had to question everything I believed, and never accept my own instincts. It required constant vigilance; it was intellectually exhausting. ~ Lynn Barber

Life's lessons come from unexpected places. We cannot afford to allow prejudices to shut out God's blessings. Being equal is based on seeing equal. It is seated in each individual's willingness to claim their own equality despite all evidence to the contrary and all talk by others who dare to question their value. ~ Melba Pattillo Beals

Prejudices of any kind are the destroyers of human happiness & welfare. ~ Abdu'l- Baha

My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me. ~ George Gordon Byron

... the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth ... and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader's attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness. ~ Gore Vidal

I was utterly free of speculative prejudices. The bear side doesn't appeal to me any more than the bull side, or vice versa. My one steadfast prejudice is against being wrong. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore

Come out, O lions, and shake off the ancient mysticism and prejudices. ~ Abhijit Naskar

From these prejudices there arises conflict, transient joys and suffering. But we are unconscious of this, unconscious that we are slaves to certain forms of tradition, to social and political environment, to false values. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

I listen to music every day for study reasons, and I confess that I have very little knowledge of what is going on in the hit parades around the world. I have no prejudices for any kind of music genre, and I listen with pleasure to many songs on the radio that my children already know of by heart, while I hear them practically for the first time. ~ Andrea Bocelli

Antinerd and antigeek prejudices are tolerated because they are seen as harmless, but they are not. They are bad for children, and they might be bad for our society as a whole, because they are recent incarnations of a very old American disease: anti-intellectualism. And anti-intellectualism, as I will argue, is very bad for children and even worse for our society as a whole. ~ David Andregg

We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction, ~ Charles Lindbergh

A stereotype is not a stereotype if it's true. ~ Ron DeLegge II

The problem with hatred and violence is that they intensity the fears of the white majority, and leave them less ashamed of their prejudices toward Negroes. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are addicted to our egotism, our likes and dislikes and prejudices, and depend upon them for our own sense of identity. ~ Karen Armstrong

An intensive human rights education for all communities needs to be provided to overcome the old prejudices. ~ Ruth Manorama

Wealth, the war [WW1], and the phobias, manias, dementias, prejudices and terrors that come from both, were the dominant factors. ~ Robert McAlmon

A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill. ~ William Golding

We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela's largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be most useful to ask, perhaps we should begin by discerning what our prospective leaders believe it worthwhile for us to hear.

Do they cater to our prejudices by suggesting that we treat people outside our ethnicity, race, creed or party as unworthy of dignity and respect?

Do they want us to nurture our anger toward those who we believe have done us wrong, rub raw our grievances and set our sights on revenge?

Do they encourage us to have contempt for our governing institutions and the electoral process?

Do they seek to destroy our faith in essential contributors to democracy, such as an independent press, and a professional judiciary?

Do they exploit the symbols of patriotism, the flag, the pledge in a conscious effort to turn us against one another?

If defeated at the polls, will they accept the verdict, or insist without evidence they have won?

Do they go beyond asking about our votes to brag about their ability to solve all problems put to rest all anxieties and satisfy every desire?

Do they solicit our cheers by speaking casually and with pumped up machismo about using violence to blow enemies away?

Do they echo the attitude of Musolini: "The crowd doesn't have to know, all they have to do is believe and submit to being shap ~ Madeleine K. Albright

Tips for Facebook These tips are equally valid for Twitter, Tumblr, G+, and any other time-hungry Social Networking. Keep business and recreational separate. Run two profiles so you can demarcate the different activities. Business Social Networking fits in 'Time-Out'. Personal Social Networking belongs in 'Down-Time' Keep your beliefs and prejudices away from your Profile. Be a good Digital Citizen. ~ Stacy Hudson

Common foreign policy is completely unnecessary. The various European countries have widely differing priorities, goals and prejudices. It would be wrong to force them all to follow the same course. ~ Vaclav Klaus

Lift the curtain and 'the State' reveals itself as a little group of fallible men in Whitehall, making guesses about the future, influenced by political prejudices and partisan prejudices, and working on projections drawn from the past by a staff of economists. ~ Enoch Powell

Tolerating discrimination is worse than committing discrimination, for toleration of discrimination is a sign of approval and implicit advocacy for discrimination. So, speak up - speak up for acceptance, speak up for brotherhood, speak up for unification, speak up for a diverse world and a united world. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The catastrophe of the atomic bombs which shook men out of cities and businesses and economic relations, shook them also out of their old-established habits of thought, and out of the lightly held beliefs and prejudices that came down to them from the past. ~ H.G.Wells

Noah had transformed in my eyes, too, but it wasn't because he had changed. It was my perception of him that had changed. He'd always been the cool person I'd come to know and respect, I'd just been blinded by my prejudices. ~ Lee Strauss

We're always going to have prejudices ... I don't think we can change society. You can only change individual by individual. And you can change yourself. ~ Esmeralda Santiago