I think you go into a debate trying to be fair minded and trying to be balanced but occasionally there will be a sense where it feels like the moral imperative is pulling you one direction or another.
I'm fair-minded, maybe. Maybe I bend over backward to give people too much benefit of the doubt. And I'll give credit where credit is due.
My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.
I make no apologies for being reasonable.
A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
Honesty of thought and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice and seek honorably to know and speak the truth are the only builders of a better life.
Neutrality in things good or evil is both odious and prejudicial; but in matters of an indifferent nature is safe and commendable. Herein taking of parts maketh sides, and breaketh unity. In an unjust cause of separation, he that favoreth both parts may perhaps have least love of either side, but hath most charity in himself.
An unprejudiced mind is probably the rarest thing in the world; to nonprejudice I attach the greatest value.
There are only two ways to be quite unprejudiced and impartial. One is to be completely ignorant. The other is to be completely indifferent. Bias and prejudice are attitudes to be kept in hand, not attitudes to be avoided.
I'm afraid, is that there are a number of groups who really don't want a fair-minded judge who has an openness to both sides of the argument. Rather, they want judges who will impose their liberal agenda on the American people; views so liberal that they cannot prevail at the ballot box.
I can promise to be upright, but not to be without bias. [Ger., Aufrichtig zu sein kann ich versprechen; unparteiisch zu sein aber nicht.]
I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man's past always colors his views, and that nothing else is so irritating as impartiality.
In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.
If partisanship makes us abandon intellectual honesty, if we oppose what our opponents say or do simply because they are the ones saying or doing it, we become mere political short-sellers, hoping for bad news because it's good for our ideological investment.
Popularity disarms envy in well-disposed minds. Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others who feel that the world has done them justice. When success has not this effect in opening the mind, it is a sign that it has been ill deserved.
An honest man nearly always thinks justly.
For the rest, he was the same to all men, the fashionable world and the ordinary people. He judged nothing in haste, or without taking account of the cirumstances. He said, 'Let me see how the fault arose.
I think the generosity of President Trump's spirit, recognizing that in the patriot's heart, there's no room for prejudice is part of who this president is.
