Attitudes Quotes

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

The fact that crime and poverty are correlated is automatically taken to mean that poverty causes crime, not that similar attitudes or behavior patterns may contribute to both poverty and crime.

It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion.

Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature. . . . This faith may be enacted in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to one another in all the incidents and relations of daily life.

A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better.

Can you let go of words and ideas, attitudes and expectations? If so, then the Tao will loom into view.

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.

Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.

No one in China has a solid belief or trust in society.

… moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years.

Cultural views often don't move at all for a very long time, but when they move they can move very fast.

Normal life cannot sustain revolutionary attitudes for long.

Nations are liable to various revolutions in the state of their minds, and extent of their knowledge, as well as in their power and wealth ….

The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success.

More essential than working on attitudes and behaviors is examining the paradigms out of which those attitudes and behaviors flow.

As the trust deficit persists, a deeper rot takes hold: Attitudes and norms begin to change. When no one is trustworthy, it will be only fools who trust. The concept of fairness itself is eroded.

Every intellectual attitude is latently political.

The United States, acting within the constraints imposed by its traditions and public attitudes, cannot crush a revolutionary movement which is sufficiently large, dedicated, competent and well supported…. The structure of U. S. military power is ill-suited to cope with guerrilla warfare waged by a determined, resourceful, and politically astute opponent.

Today we say all art is political. But I'd say all art has to do with ethics. Which after all really comes to the same thing. It's a matter of attitudes.

I think it's important for us to recognize that although historically black communities have been very progressive with respect to issues of race and with respect to struggles for racial equality, that does not necessarily translate into progressive positions on gender issues, progressive positions on issues of sexuality and in the latter 1990s we have to recognize the intersectionality, the interconnectedness of all of these institutions and attitudes.

Now, I've lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago no matter what some folks say. You can see it not just in statistics, you see it in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum. But we're not where we need to be. And all of us have more work to do.

Everybody is xenophobic to an extent.

My ideas about vampires may by romantic, but your attitudes toward women need a major overhaul.

The struggle for human rights and democracy are not always the same thing. Sometimes what you have to do is break cultural attitudes. Democracies aren’t necessarily very good at that…. It’s very hard for oppressed minorities to be given their due.

A lot of potential scenarios create challenges. It's all about how you grew up, values instilled in you.