If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely ri...ght, 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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure, 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair M...an, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an Author.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If a person is capable of rectifying his erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence he is not prejudiced. Prejudgments becom...e prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge. A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it. We tend to grow emotional when a prejudice is threatened with contradiction. Thus the difference between ordinary prejudgments and prejudice is that one can discuss and rectify a prejudgment without emotional resistance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more g...eneral opinions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religio...us matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The most ingenious men are now agreed, that [universities] are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davi...es, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing towards us,--he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my Lord, it comes" ... Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell where I come from."M"From Scotland," cried Davies roguishly. "Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expense of my country.... [W]ith that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression "come from Scotland," which I used in the sense of being of that country, and, as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, retorted, "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by e...ducation; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »