Against Prejudice Quotes & Sayings

For whatever it is worth, I never believed Wickham's stories of maltreatment at your hands. Other than being a rather boring, disagreeable fellow, I did not think you so dishonorable that you would go against your father's wishes. — KaraLynne Mackrory

Son, quite aside from my own conditioned reflex against munching a roast haunch of - well, you, for example - quite aside from that trained-in emotional prejudice, for coldly practical reasons I regard our taboo against cannibalism as an excellent idea . . . because we are not civilized." "Huh?" "Obvious. If we didn't have a tribal taboo about the matter so strong that you honestly believed it was an instinct, I can think of a long list of people I wouldn't trust with my back turned, not with the price of beef what it is today. Eh? — Robert A. Heinlein

America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice. — Thomas Paine

It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what. — William Stanley Jevons

The Court stands against any winds that blow as havens of refuge for those who might otherwise suffer because they are helpless, weak, outnumbered, or because they are nonconforming victims of prejudice or public excitement. — Hugo Black

In England "The Day After," though unpopular with viewers, seems to have confirmed the average Englishman's mindless prejudice against Kansas. Shortly after the film portrayed that state being turned into an overused barbecue pit by nuclear weapons, support for British nuclear weapons rose a full percentage point. — Emmett Tyrrell

All that makes a writer is the ability to write strongly and directly from some unaccountable and almost invincible personal prejudice like Stevensons in favor of all being happy as kings no matter if consumptive, or Hardy against God for the blunder of sex, or Sinclair Lewis' against small American towns, or Shakespeare's mixed, at once against and in favor of life itself. I take it that everybody has the prejudice and spends some time feeling for it to speak and write from. But most people end as they begin by acting out the prejudices of other people. — Robert Frost

My fight is not for racial sameness but for racial equality and against racial prejudice and discrimination. — John Oliver Killens

There is a decided prejudice on the part of the general public against being piloted by a woman, and as great an aversion, partially because of this, by executives of those companies whose activities require employing pilots. — Louise Thaden

In the fullness of time, I suspect that bigotry against homosexuals will seem as repugnant as racial prejudice does today. Or so one hopes. — Jon Meacham

Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed. — Victor Hugo

The absurd view that other communities, religions, races, cultures, states and nations, are somehow "less than" one's own comes from an underdeveloped consciousness and low self-esteem. Prejudice and supremacism reveal that people do not possess a balanced framework of compassionate independence and self respect. We do not belong to any national construct, or group thought-form, but in fact belong to our great and beautiful world, and to the entire universe, as free and unique conscious beings. Prejudice comes from insecurity and its spiritually infantile need of belonging. Out of the hobbled spirit of attachment, and the insecure need of belonging, come the gross judgments against those who do not belong. — Bryant McGill

The underlying factor here is the tendency of the security markets to undervalue issues that are involved in any sort of complicated legal proceedings. An old Wall Street motto has been: "Never buy into a lawsuit." This may be sound advice to the speculator seeking quick action on his holdings. But the adoption of this attitude by the general public is bound to create bargain opportunities in the securities affected by it, since the prejudice against them holds their prices down to unduly low levels.* — Benjamin Graham

To overcome prejudice, we can boldly speak against it and teach our children total intolerance for it. We can get to know one another; when we do so, the stereotypes that impede relationships will fall away. Finally, we can express regret to others for past prejudicial sins and ask God to forgive us and change our thinking. — Beth Moore

The older America, until the 1890s and in some respects until 1914, was wrapped in the security of continental isolation, village society, the Protestant denominations, and a flourishing industrial capitalism. But reluctantly, year by year, over several decades, it has been drawn into the twentieth century and forced to cope with its unpleasant realities: first the incursions of cosmopolitanism and skepticism, then the disappearance of American isolation and easy military security, the collapse of traditional capitalism and its supplementation by a centralized welfare state, finally the unrelenting costs and stringencies of the Second World War, the Korean War, and the cold war. As a consequence, the heartland of America, filled with people who are often fundamentalist in religion, nativist in prejudice, isolationist in foreign policy, and conservative in economics, has constantly rumbled with an underground revolt against all these tormenting manifestations of our modern predicament. — Richard Hofstadter

You have to bring to the photograph a prejudice about something, and I'm prejudiced against farmers who tie dead animals on fences. Therefore, I can make a meaningful photograph. — Rondal Partridge

The Christian, therefore, has a sociological base which is extremely strong. As humanists are fighting today against prejudice, they have little philosophical base for their battle. But as a Christian I do: No matter who I look at, no matter where he is, every man is created in the image of God as much as I am. So the Bible — Francis A. Schaeffer

I deplore any action which denies artistic talent an opportunity to express itself because of prejudice against race origin. — Bess Truman

The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to attack and far less easy to conquer than the mere fact of servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the race, and the prejudice of color. — Alexis De Tocqueville

It is my prejudice against everything that turns out well that has given me a taste for reading history. — Emil Cioran

I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one. — Herman Melville

Profound as race prejudice is against the Negro American, it is not practically as far-reaching as the prejudice against women. For stripping away the sentimentality which makes Mother's Day and Best American Mother Contests, the truth is that women suffer all the effects of a minority. — Pearl S. Buck

Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice. — David Oyelowo

There's no such thing as sexism against men. That's because sexism is prejudice + power. Men are the dominant gender with power in society. — Anita Sarkeesian

I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias. — Albert Einstein

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

There will always be that dreadful monster prejudice to do extra battle against because of their color. — Major Taylor

There are cultural and societal prejudices that make it hard for us to write. It has been my experience that for some men, the struggle to write involves the prejudice that it is not "manly" to reveal the inner life, the secrets of the heart and of the imagination. For many women, the struggle to write is at base a struggle against the idea that women's lives are not of interest as literature. I have a friend whose husband once said after her first book had been published, "You sit there writing as if your life had some significance. — Pat Schneider

Ever since the Crusades, when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east, western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith - even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity. — Karen Armstrong

For one of the peculiarities about prejudice is that it seems always to speak from the heart; it seems, in some daring way, to be speaking the truth, to be saying what others secretly believe, but do not have the courage to say themselves. And the man who speaks against prejudice can often come to seem like the peddler of shopworn banalities, while the voice of prejudice can seem bold and original; a lone voice with the power to drown out others, the power to subdue. — Aatish Taseer

I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent. — Philip Zimbardo

There's this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people, that they can't be in pain or they can't have rough lives or be deep or interesting. — Rob Lowe

There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which in times of contention for principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion. — John Quincy Adams

You cannot stoke the fires of prejudice against German people and then not find that somewhere, sometime down the road it doesn't discharge. — Ernst Zundel

A sannyasin is one who has no prejudices, who has not chosen any ideology to be his own, who is choicelessly aware of all that is. In this choicelessness you will be in the middle. The moment you choose, you choose some extreme. The moment you choose, you choose against something; otherwise there is no question of choice. Being in a choiceless awareness is another meaning of being in the middle. — Rajneesh

There is no more effective way to radicalize American Muslim youth than for political leaders to make public displays of prejudice against all Muslims. Suspicion will undermine their sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics. — Miroslav Volf

Embrace all emotions: sadness, happiness, sorrow, hate, love, prejudice, fear; they are weapons against our greatest enemy: indifference. — Dave Matthes

Humanity is in the highest degree irrational, so that there is no prospect of influencing it by reasonable arguments. Against prejudice one can do nothing. — Sigmund Freud

Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs. — Edwin Percy Whipple

Prejudice against other animals arises from socially promulgated beliefs that reflect a speciesist ideology, created to legitimate economic exploitation or elimination of a competitor. Oppressive practices have deep roots in economic and political arrangements. Therefore, for injustices to be addressed effectively, it is not enough to try to change socially acquired prejudice or to focus only on moral change. The structure of the oppressive system itself must be challenged and changed. — David A. Nibert

I might as well enquire," replied she, "why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? — Jane Austen

Public and employer opinion often defeat society's best interests with a prejudice against middle-aged women. — Kate Smith

A Lesbian who consents to guilt for her sexual preference is her own worst oppressor. She accepts and internalizes prejudices and uses them against herself. — Sidney Abbott

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

Someone said: I have been prejudiced against myself from my earliest childhood: hence I find some truth in all blame and some stupidity in all praise. I generally estimate praise too poorly and blame too highly. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The FDA and much, but not all, of the orthodox medical profession are actively hostile against vitamins and minerals ... They are out to get the health food industry ... And they are trying to do this out of active hostility and prejudice. — William Proxmire

Our age is so gregarious that there is at present a marked prejudice against anyone being alone. It is looked down on, and a need to be alone is almost considered a fault, a weakness, as though if one cannot endure - more - enjoy being with other people every minute one is aloof, unreal, and somehow to be pitied. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

If any religion turns against love of equal partners, there's something flawed with the religion, not the love. — Akilnathan Logeswaran

The Monster Ball is by nature a protest: A youth church experience to speak out and celebrate against all forms of discrimination + prejudice. — Lady Gaga

People have prejudices against a nation in which they have no acquaintances. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

I had not got over the prejudice against Lincoln with which my personal contact with him in 1858 imbued me. — Henry Villard

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. — Edmund Burke

I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. — Mark Twain

I found I could listen without envy to Letty's singing, and afterwards when the applause came, I did not mind that Mrs Knowles was heaping praises upon her. Peter's hands were on my chair, and when I leaned back I could feel them against my shoulders. — Jennifer Paynter

The state does not oppose the freedom of people to express their particular cultural attachments, but nor does it nurture such expression - rather [ ... ] it responds with 'benign neglect' [ ... ] The members of ethnic and national groups are protected against discrimination and prejudice, and they are free to maintain whatever part of their ethnic heritage or identity they wish, consistent with the rights of others. But their efforts are purely private, and it is not the place of public agencies to attach legal identities or disabilities to cultural membership or ethnic identity. This separation of state and ethnicity precludes any legal or governmental recognition of ethnic groups, or any use of ethnic criteria in the distribution of rights, resources, and duties. — Will Kymlicka

The real point is that you cannot harbor malice toward others and then cry foul when someone displays intolerance against you. Prejudice tolerated is intolerance encouraged. Rise up in righteousness when you witness the words and deeds of hate, but only if you are willing to rise up against them all, including your own. Otherwise suffer the slings and arrows of disrespect silently. — Harvey Fierstein

One of the great triumphs of the nineteenth century was to limit the connotation of the word "immoral" in such a way that, for practical purposes, only those were immoral who drank too much or made too copious love. Those who indulged in any or all of the other deadly sins could look down in righteous indignation on the lascivious and the gluttonous ... In the name of all lechers and boozers I most solemnly protest against the invidious distinction made to our prejudice. — Aldous Huxley

It demonstrates to his simple mind in the most positive manner that we have no prejudice against him on account of his race, and that while he behaves himself he will be treated the same as a white man. — George Crook

I think that it [the Church] stands for everything most hostile to the mental emancipation and stimulation of mankind. It is the completest, most highly organized system of prejudices and antagonisms in existence. Everywhere in the world there are ignorance and prejudice, but the greatest complex of these, with the most extensive prestige and the most intimate entanglement with traditional institutions, is the Roman Catholic Church. It presents many faces towards the world, but everywhere it is systematic in its fight against freedom. — H.G.Wells

The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Children can be the most cruel creatures alive. They have the herd instinct of prejudice against any outsider, and they are merciless in its indulgence. — Lucy Maud Montgomery

I only have one prejudice, and that is against those who are prejudiced. — Lance Greenfield

The pursuit and preservation of purity can drive prejudice and hate. Many crimes against humanity have been committed in its name. Purity is best applied to water. — Jamie Le Fay

The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity. — Aldous Huxley

When political and business leaders tell the public - any public - 'We don't trust you to make the right decision' - they prejudice that electorate against the very proposals they want it to accept and undermine public confidence in themselves. — Preston Manning

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding - certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever. — Jane Austen

Do battle against prejudice and discrimination wherever you find it. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

The truth is that neither then nor at any former time, since I had attained my maturity in Age, Reading and reflection had I imbibed any general Prejudice against Kings, or in favour of them. It appeared to me then as it has done ever since, that there is a State of Society in which a Republican Government is the best, and in America the only one ... — John Adams

TR on using extramarital accusations against Wilson: It won't work. You can't cast a man as Romeo who looks and acts like an apothecary's clerk. — David Pietrusza

All my life I have fought against prejudice and intolerance. — Harry S. Truman

It is an old trick. The playgoer who does not like dirty plays is denounced as a prude; the music-lover who resents cacophony is told he is a pedant; and in all these matters the final crushing blow administered to the man of discrimination is the ascription to him of a hidebound prejudice against things that are new because they are new. — Royal Cortissoz

You can never judge any music by their audience. That's the main reason people in England have a prejudice against someone like Skrillex. You judge people by their music. That's always been first and foremost. — Diplo

If I had a child who wanted to be a teacher, I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed, and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives no less because they may live to see some fraction of the battle won. — James Hilton

As with many other things, there is a surprising amount of prejudice against quality control, but the proof of the pudding is still in the eating. — Kaoru Ishikawa

Talking of appearances, I would like my future readers to know that the picture of Jim and me that Thomas Hart Benton painted on the wall of the Missouri state capitol bears not the slightest resemblance to either one of us. ... I've never been satisfied with any representation of myself and have seen only one picture of Jim that did him justice. I don't know why this should be, unless it is evidence of a nearly universal prejudice against us, instigated by Sunday school superintendents, Republicans, and bigots. — Norman Lock

The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems. — John Lancaster Spalding

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

I don't have prejudices. I'm against taboos. But of course there are some things I'll never touch - because as a mom, there are things one doesn't want their children to be around. — Karl Lagerfeld

I have all my life fought against prejudice, having been subjected to it myself. — John Galliano

Creation has been taken down a very different path than We [God] desired. In your world the value of the individual is constantly weighed against the survival of the system - whether political, economical, social, or religious - any system, actually. First one person, and then a few and finally even many are easily sacrificed for the good and ongoing existence of that system. In one form or another this lies behind every struggle for power every prejudice, every war, and every abuse of relationship. The 'will to power and independence' has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal. — Wm. Paul Young

You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! — Jane Austen

I had brought from Paris the national prejudice against Italian music; but I had also received from nature that acute sensibility against which prejudices are powerless. I soon contracted the passion it inspires in all those born to understand it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The believer alone will be able to hear the call. It comes from beyond ourselves, beyond our society, beyond the climate of opinion and prejudice and rebellion and skepticism in which we live, and beyond our time and taste. It draws toward the center of all things, that still place of which T.S. Eliot wrote :
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word. — Elisabeth Elliot

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

In the time when my mother began standing up against prejudice and racism, the vast majority of white Americans rarely thought about civil rights. — Ezekiel Emanuel

In recent years a new International System has been developing, oriented toward the establishment of norms and principles of universal jurisdiction, above national sovereignty, in the areas of what is called the New Agenda ... we have to confront ... what I dare to call the Anglo-Saxon prejudice against the establishment of supra-national organizations. — Vicente Fox

The time's come: there's a terrific thunder-cloud advancing upon us, a mighty storm is coming to freshen us up ... It's going to blow away all this idleness and indifference, and prejudice against work ... I'm going to work, and in twenty-five or thirty years' time every man and woman will be working. — Anton Chekhov

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here. — Eleanor Roosevelt

There is so much ignorant prejudice against bees in a dining-room. — Patrick O'Brian

It is just as impossible to help reform by conciliating prejudice as it is by buying votes. Prejudice is the enemy. Whoever is not for you is against you. — John Jay Chapman

Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force; and in the white man's quest for wealth and an easy life they have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery. The modern prejudice against Negroes is the result of the desire to maintain this unworthy condition. — Albert Einstein

[ ... ] assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against, argument - this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth. — John Stuart Mill

In his entire output, I can find only one piece of genuine unfairness: a thuggish attack on the poetry of WH Auden, whom he regarded as a dupe of the Communist Party. But even this was softened in some later essays. The truth is that he disliked Auden's homosexuality, and could not get over his prejudice. But much of the interest of Orwell lies in the fact that he was born prejudiced, so to speak, against Jews and the coloured peoples of the empire, and against the poor and uneducated, and against women and intellectuals - and managed, in a transparent and unique way, to educate himself out of this fog of bigotry (though he never did get over his aversion to 'pansies'). — Christopher Hitchens

When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the slightest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. — Hsin Hsin Ming

The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy, which Mr. Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract, had made it clear to the beaten Empire that it would have better treatment from the Allies as a republic than as a monarchy. Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. — Winston S. Churchill

Someone must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen to me to do so. The awful death roll called every week is appalling, not only because of the lives taken, the cruelty and outrage to the victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters. — William Wells Brown

After all, it's pretty hard to be prejudiced against blacks and gays when you're a-okay with Klingons and the Green Men of Mars. — Lou Anders

Miley Cyrus made some chinky eyes
Standing behind an Asian guy
I don't know if this should fly
As if there wasn't enough to despise
I wasn't necessarily a fan of
Her, her dad, or Hannah Montana
I tend to prefer the songs of Rihanna
Racism against Asians is simply bananas!
Oh Miley!
Chinky eyes make you look wily
prejudice isn't thought of so highly
it doesn't make us all smiley
Why is there nothing that Asians can do?
To make fun of other races as easily as you
Why isn't racism against Asians taboo?
Why are we always so racially screwed!
All you have to do is pull at your face
To make your eyelids resemble our race
This kind of joke has no proper place
Miley Cyrus is a disgrace! — Margaret Cho

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

I don't think there is prejudice against atheists the same way there is prejudice against fat people. I don't think people hate or contemn atheists; I think people feel sorry for atheists. — Gene Weingarten