quotations about prejudice
It is difficult for an individual to decide--as he might decide some morning, say, not to shave--to be rational (reasonable) rather than to remain prejudiced. Prejudices are rooted in such deep feelings that it does not occur to us to question them.
H. GORDON HULLFISH & PHILIP G. SMITH
Reflective Thinking: The Method of Education
We talk of early prejudices, of the prejudices of religion, of position, of education; but in truth we only mean the prejudices of others. It is by the observation of trivial matters that the wise learn the influence of prejudice over their own minds at all times, and the wonderfully moulding power which those minds possess in making all things around conform to the idea of the moment. Let a man but note how often he has seen likenesses where no resemblance exists; admired ordinary pictures, because he thought they were from the hands of celebrated masters; delighted in the commonplace observations of those who had gained a reputation for wisdom; laughed where no wit was; and he will learn with humility to make allowance for the effect of prejudice in others.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.
HENRY ST. JOHN BOLINGBROKE
Letters on the Study and Use of History
Prejudices may be somewhat rectified by age, and by converse with the world, but they flourish in full vigour in youthful minds, reared in seclusion and privacy, and undisciplined by intercourse with various classes of mankind.
C. B. BROWN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Arguments do not erase prejudice any more than arguments erase scars, whether psychological or physical.
GERRY L. SPENCE
How to Argue and Win Every Time
A fish will sometimes with pleasure rise out of his element, and spring into ours: so a man will sometimes with pleasure rise from prejudice and falsehood, into the sphere of reason and truth. But the fish will most naturally and joyfully dive again into his element of water; and the man as joyfully and naturally into his element of prejudice and falsehood.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.
GEORGE BANCROFT
Literary and Historical Miscellanies
When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.
ANNE LOUISE GERMAINE DE STAËL
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
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
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
In this world the only opinion that holds court is prejudice.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.
KATE CHOPIN
The Awakening
All prejudices are obstinate, like diseases of chronic tenacity, and require radical cures.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
I know the cause of all human disappointment -- worldly prejudice.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg, December 23, 1810
Prejudices, my Lord, is an equivocal term, and may as well mean right opinions taken upon trust and deeply rooted in the mind, as false and absurd opinions so derived and grown into it.
RICHARD HURD
Dialogues on the Uses of Foreign Travel
Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.
RUSSELL KIRK
The Conservative Mind
I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit.
ULYSSES S. GRANT
letter to Isaac N. Morris, September 14, 1868
The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Parerga and Paralipomena
Prejudice has always a neutralizing power; in whatever mind it dwells it acts in relation to truth as alkali in relation to acids, neutralizing its very power; arguments the most cogent, discourses the most powerful, can be neutralized at once by some prejudice in the mind.
DAVID THOMAS
The Homilist; or, The Pulpit for the People
Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices--just recognize them.
EDWARD R. MURROW
attributed, Living Thoughts: inspiration, insight, and wisdom from sources throughout the ages