Quotes About Prejudice

The boy stood up. He was the filthiest human I had ever seen. His neck was dark gray, the backs of his hands were rusty, and his fingernails were black deep into the quick.

That's the difference between America and Germany. We are a democracy and Germany is a dictatorship. Dictator-ship," she said. "Over here we don't believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Pre-ju-dice

whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

They try to strike terror in Southern mothers, lest their children grow up to fall in love with Negroes. If they didn't make an issue of it, the issue would rarely arise. If the issue arose, it would be met on private ground.

cheatin' a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man

Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived. Jem wouldn't go by her place without Atticus beside him.

Maycomb's usual disease. Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand …

Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case.

Jean Louise, when a man's looking down the double barrel of a shotgun, he picks up the first weapon he can find to defend himself, be it a stone or a stick of stovewood or a citizens' council.

couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life." "Doesn't make it right," said Jem stolidly. He beat his fist softly on his knee. "You just can't convict a man on evidence like that—you can't." "You couldn't, but they could and did.

I was scared, suh. - Why were you scared? - Mr Finch if you was a nigger like me you'd be scared, too.

Dr. Finch looked up. "You're making a bad mistake if you think your daddy's dedicated to keeping the Negroes in their places.

Do you defend niggers, Atticus?' I asked him that evening. 'Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.' ''s what everybody at schools says.' 'From now on it'll be everybody less one -' 'Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, wh ydo you send me to school?

I wondered if anybody had ever called her "ma'am" or "Miss Mayella" in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like?

There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads--they couldn't be fair if they tried.

The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness am I.

Jean Louise, when I said that I wasn't referring to us." "Who were you talking about, then?" "I was talking about the—you know, the trashy people. The men who keep Negro women and that kind of thing.

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand

The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose was plain hell.

There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.

But Mrs Dubose held us: 'Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the court-house lawing for niggers!

Thereafter, he [Bob Ewell] resumed his regular weekly appearances at the welfare office for his cheque, and received it with no grace amid obscure mutterings that the bastards who thought they ran this town wouldn't permit an honest man to make a living.

Negro would not pass the Radley Place at night, he would cut across to the sidewalk opposite and whistle as he walked.

She wished she had paid more attention to them, but only one glance down a column of print was enough to tell her a familiar story: same people who were the Invisible Empire, who hated Catholics; ignorant, fear-ridden, red-faced, boorish, law-abiding, one hundred per cent red-blooded Anglo-Saxons, her fellow Americans—trash.