Prejudice Quotes - Page 30

• I can bear to hear of imputed or real errors. The man who wishes to stand well in the opinion of others must do this; because he is thereby enabled to correct his faults, or remove prejudices which are imbibed against him.

  George Washington

  Real, Men, Errors

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1834). “(v. 9) Containing correspondence from the time of resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, to that of his inauguration as president”, p.237

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• I know the cause of all human disappointment -- worldly prejudice.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Disappointment, Causes, Humans

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1926). “The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Notes on Shelley's correspondents. Letters, 1803 to 1812”

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• The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Philosophy, Common, Problem

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Accepting, Being True, Understood

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Canada, having few indigenous prejudices, has been compelled to import them from elsewhere, duty-free, and it is the rare Canadian who is not shaken, at some time in the year, by "old, unhappy, far-off things / And battles long ago", like Wordsworth's solitary reaper. We are a nation of immigrants, and not happy in our minds.

  Robertson Davies

  Long Ago, Years, Mind

  "The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks". Book by Robertson Davies, 1947.

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• 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

  Pigs, Understanding, Trying

  Jane Addams (1961). “Twenty Years at Hull-House, with Autobiographical Notes, by Jane Addams. With a Foreword by Henry Steele Commager, Drawings by Norah Hamilton”

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• 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

  Lying, Thinking, Color

  "How to Argue and Win Every Time". Book by Gerry Spence, 1995.

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• Absolutely. I think, I think the American people, at their core, are a decent people. I think that we still have prejudice in our midst, but I think that the vast majority of Americans are willing, are willing to judge people on the basis of their ideas and their character. And in the case of the presidency, I think what's most important is whether the American people think that you understand their hopes and dreams and struggles and whether they think you can actually help them achieve those hopes and dreams.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Struggle, Character

  "CNN Newsroom" with Kyra Phillips and Don Lemon, www.cnn.com. December 11, 2006.

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• I don't think my films are going to get rid of racism or prejudice. I think the best thing my films can do is provoke discussion.

  Spike Lee

  Thinking, Racism, Film

  Spike Lee, Cynthia Fuchs (2002). “Spike Lee: Interviews”, p.26, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• There can be no place in a 21st-century parliament for people with 15th-century titles upholding 19th-century prejudices.

  Paddy Ashdown

  People, Titles, Century

  Independent, November 25, 1998.

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• History teaches us these lessons for the interveners: leave your prejudices at home, keep your ambitions low, have enough resources to do the job, do not lose the golden hour, make security your first priority, involve the neighbours.

  Paddy Ashdown

  Jobs, Home, Ambition

  "Lessons in Foreign Intervention". news.bbc.co.uk. June 11, 2007.

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• Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.

  William James

  Plato, Philosophy, Slumber

  William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.60, Routledge

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• Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.

  William James

  History, Grease, Mind

  William James (2015). “Pragmatism and the Conception of Thruth”, p.134, William James

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• We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

  William James

  Believe, Fighting, Fire

  William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.284, Harvard University Press

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• The Knight in the triumph of his heart made several 6 reflections on thegreatness of the British Nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that theThames was thenoblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the Seven Wonders of the World; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

  Joseph Addison

  Heart, Reflection, Knights

  'The Spectator' no. 383, 20 May 1712

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• We don't go to school to learn, but to be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be useless and unhappy.

  Andre Maurois

  School, Class, Unhappy

  "The Silence of Colonel Bramble". Book by André Maurois, 1918.

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• Travel is lethal to prejudice.

  Mark Twain

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• Nothing hath wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.

  Isaac Barrow

  Boisterous, Zeal

  Isaac Barrow (1818). “The Theological Works of Isaac Barrow”, p.237

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• 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

  Space, People, Bears

  Isaac Newton (1966). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World: The motion of bodies”, p.6, Univ of California Press

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• The slaving Poor are incapable of any Principles: Gentlemen may be converted to true Principles, by Time and Experience. The middling Rank of Men have Curiosity and Knowledge enough to form Principles, but not enough to form true ones, or correct any Prejudices that they may have imbib'd: And 'tis among the middling Rank, that Tory Principles do at present prevail most in England.

  David Hume

  Men, Gentleman, Curiosity

  David Hume (1826). “The philosophical works of David Hume”, p.80

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• A wise man's kingdom is his own breast: or, if he ever looks farther, it will only be to the judgment of a select few, who are free from prejudices, and capable of examining his work. Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude; and Phocion, you know, always suspected himself of some blunder when he was attended with the applauses of the populace.

  David Hume

  Wise, Men, Stronger

  David Hume, J. Y. T. Greig (2011). “The Letters of David Hume: 1727-1765”, p.305, Oxford University Press, USA

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• There is a notion that complete impartiality is the most fitting and indeed the normal disposition for true exegesis , because it guarantees complete absence of prejudice. For a short time, around 1910, this idea threatened to achieve almost a canonical status in Protestant theology. But now, we can quite calmly describe it as merely comical.

  Karl Barth

  Ideas, Guarantees, Normal

  Karl Barth (2004). “Church Dogmatics: The doctrine of the word of God (2 pts.)”, p.469, A&C Black

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• It should not prejudice my voice that I'm not born a man, if I say something advantageous to the present situation. For I'm taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation.

  Aristophanes

  Men, Voice, Feminism

  Aristophanes “Lysistrata, or, women for peace!”, Lulu.com

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• Observation is the generative act in scientific discovery. For all its aberrations, the evidence of the senses is essentially to be relied upon provided we observe nature as a child does, without prejudices and preconceptions, but with that clear and candid vision which adults lose and scientists must strive to regain.

  Peter Medawar

  Children, Discovery, Vision

  Peter Brian Medawar (1969). “Induction and intuition in scientific thought”

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• His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

  Arthur Balfour

  Country, Religious, Home

  Letter to Lionel Walter, Lord Rothschild, 2 Nov. 1917. Known as the "Balfour Declaration."

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