Richard Dawkins Quotes

The problem with labels is that they lead to stereotypes and stereotypes lead to generalizations and generalizations lead to assumptions and assumptions lead back to stereotypes. It’s a vicious cycle, and after you go around and around a bunch of times you end up believing that all vegans only eat cabbage and all gay people love musicals.

We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.

What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.

We put labels on people and fight wars over them. If we truly want harmony, we have to get past the labels.

Taking the line of least resistance, we lump the most different people together under the same heading. Taking the line of least resistance, we ascribe to them collective crimes, collective acts and opinions. "The Serbs have massacred…", "The English have devastated…", "The Jews have confiscated…", "The Blacks have torched", "The Arabs refuse…". We blithely express sweeping judgments on whole peoples, calling them "hardworking" and "ingenious", or "lazy", "touchy", "sly", "proud", or "obstinate". And sometimes this ends in bloodshed." – Amin Maalouf "On Identity

And it is impossible to treat human beings as human beings if you label them, if you term them, if you give them a name as Hindus, Russians, or what you will. It is so much easier to label people, for then you can pass by and kick them, drop a bomb on India or Japan.

When you do not name a group of people, you are compelled to look at each individual face and not treat them all as the mass.

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both-and mixes explosively with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today.

We see people of kindness, compassion, and possibly even faith being told, "Because of a characteristic with which you were born, you are evil and bad." Anything that even implies such a stance is profoundly toxic.

Labels are for cans, not for people.

Stop labeling people just because they're not like you.

all outcast peoples struggle to be recognized as individuals. The damage of oppression is that it robs you of your individuality. You're just a faggot. Or whatever - fill in the blank. Everything you do is seen through the prism of your gayness or your womanness or your blackness by some people.

I think it's just easier for people to put you in a box or a lane because you look similar. I think that's unfair for anybody in any situation.

It's foolish to be prejudiced. There are so many reasons to hate people on an individual basis.

When you identify yourself with a group of people or a set of ideas, aren't you separating yourself?

(Stereotyping) is only for those without the imagination to see people as they are instead of being like someone else they understand.

People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That's just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad.

I do not think much of ages. People are people. What does it matter how old or young they are? It is a category, and I do not like categories. It is a sort of pigeonhole or a label.

If you can find a way to confound people's prejudices, restore the humanity of people, individuals, you restore them to life.

We think very few people sensible, except those who are of our opinion.

I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loath and despise the groups they identify or belong to.

There are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses

The demonization of Islam and immigrants shows that perception of difference remains one of our biggest problems, and maybe always will be for a species that began in small groups competing with other groups for resources. These apparently competing forces for sameness and difference sometimes even seem to be mutually reinforcing. The homogenizing force of globalization tends to make many people feel they are on the losing side, economically and culturally, and it is they who are most easily turned against those "others" who are demonized by demagogues.

The true enemy of man is generalization.