Bigotry Quotes

“Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.”
― Michael Crichton, State of Fear

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Collected Works

“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”
― Albert Einstein

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
― George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
― Toni Morrison

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”
― Joseph Fort Newton

“Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.”
― Emma Goldman

“...racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.”
― Chris Crutcher, Whale Talk

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
― Robert Jones Jr.

“If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however ofter Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism

“Haters and bullies are always cowards, you know. They like to pick on little guys.”
― Scylar Tyberius, Sebastian the Great

“How can one not be fond of something that the Daily Mail despises?”
― Stephen Fry

“Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.”
― Lyndon Baines Johnson

“Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that’s different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses “below” you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.

Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.

Reach your arm out and put it around them.

And then, tell them they’re all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them.

If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that’s where we’re gonna be able to do it. That’s where we’ll start.

Every. Single. Time.”
― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing: The Best of Year One

“When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and "whites only" signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners--and wished them well--nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation... Our understanding of racism is therefore shaped by the most extreme expressions of individual bigotry, not by the way in which it functions naturally, almost invisibly (and sometimes with genuinely benign intent), when it is embedded in the structure of a social system.”
― Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity.”
― Armistead Maupin

“Don't think for one minute that you are any less worthy of love and peace and harmony just because of all the hate spewed by human devils. Because that is what those haters are, you know, devils!”
― Scylar Tyberius, Sebastian the Great

“Prejudice wears a variety of hats, none of them becoming.”
― Kevin Ansbro

“My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion. Why make life miserable for someone when you could be using your energy for good? We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful. When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.”
― Taylor Swift

“In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers’ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.”
― Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

“I leave pansies, the symbolic flower of freethought, in memory of the Great Agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, who stood for equality, education, progress, free ideas and free lives, against the superstition and bigotry of religious dogma. We need men like him today more than ever. His writing still inspires us and challenges the 'better angels' of our nature, when people open their hearts and minds to his simple, honest humanity. Thank goodness he was here.”
― Bruce Springsteen

“There are no unimportant jobs,” said Nova, leaning the mop against Snapshot’s desk, “only pretentious, small-minded individuals who seek to inflate their own importance by demoralizing everyone else.”
― Marissa Meyer, Archenemies

“The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“However modest one may be in one's demand for intellectual cleanliness, one cannot help feeling, when coming into contact with the New Testament, a kind of inexpressible discomfiture: for the unchecked impudence with which the least qualified want to raise their voice on the greatest problems, and even claim to be judges of things, surpasses all measure. The shameless levity with which the most intractable problems (life, world, God, purpose of life) are spoken of, as if they were not problems at all but simply things that these little bigots KNEW!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

“While it has become “cool” for white folks to hang out with black people and express pleasure in black culture, most white people do not feel that this pleasure should be linked to unlearning racism.”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism

“Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored — it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.”
― Pearl S. Buck, What America Means to Me

“It was always like this. When you spoke the truth, they hated you. The more you talked about love, the more they hated you.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love