“Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.”

Thwarted lives have the most character-conditioned hate

Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge.

Reason adapts impulses and beliefs into the real world; rationalization, on the other hand, adapts the concept of reality to the impulses and beliefs of the individual.

A new experience must be redacted into old categories. We cannot handle each event freshly in its own right. If we did so, of what use would past experience be?

Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and “patriotism” . . .

If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is.

Reasoning discovers the true cause of our acts, rationalization finds good reasons for justifying our acts.

The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never fewer.

The theist is persuaded that while nothing that contradicts science is likely to be true, still nothing that stops with science can be the whole truth.

An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.

It takes a major unhappiness, a prolonged and bitter experience, to drive us away from loyalties once formed.

Open-mindedness is considered to be a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot occur.

Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.

We cannot know the young child’s personality by studying his systems of interest, for his attention is as yet too labile, his reactions impulsive, and interests unformed.

Life is too short so we must generalize.

Personality is and does something…It is what lies behind specific acts and within the individual

His masculinity was only too apparent

Certain souls seem hard because they are capable of strong feelings, and they sometimes go to rather extreme lengths; their apparent unconcern and cruelty are but ways, known only to themselves, of feeling more strongly than others.

At all times, in every century, every age, there has been such a connection between despotism and religion that it is infinitely apparent and demonstrated a thousand times over, that in destroying one, the other must be undermined.

The mind of the thinker and the student is driven to admit, though it be awe-struck by apparent injustice, that this inequality is the work of God.

It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

There is something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-conscious pride and exultation in the laughter.

Today, the number of migrants crossing is at a 30-year low. That’s because of years of bipartisan work on this issue.