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Preconceptions Quotes

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Preconceptions Quotes

“She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged.”

LovePassionUnderstandingWomenMusicSocietyTalentExpressionMoralityJudgmentEmpathySingingExpectationsPrejudiceGenderDevotionGiftJealousyRejectionHypocrisyFeelingFaithfulnessFidelityProprietySocial NormsPreconceptionsMusicality
Book:Shirley
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“My Lady, you certainly tell me about wonderful constancy, strength and virtue and firmness of women, so can one say the same thing about men? (...) Response [by Lady Rectitude]: "Fair sweet friend, have you not yet heard the saying that the fool sees well enough a small cut in the face of his neighbour, but he disregards the great gaping one above his own eye? I will show you the great contradiction in what the men say about the changeability and inconstancy of women. It is true that they all generally insist that women are very frail [= fickle] by nature. And since they accuse women of frailty, one would suppose that they themselves take care to maintain a reputation for constancy, or at the very least, that the women are indeed less so than they are themselves. And yet, it is obvious that they demand of women greater constancy than they themselves have, for they who claim to be of this strong and noble condition cannot refrain from a whole number of very great defects and sins, and not out of ignorance, either, but out of pure malice, knowing well how badly they are misbehaving. But all this they excuse in themselves and say that it is in the nature of man to sin, yet if it so happens that any women stray into any misdeed (of which they themselves are the cause by their great power and longhandedness), then it's suddenly all frailty and inconstancy, they claim. But it seems to me that since they do call women frail, they should not support that frailty, and not ascribe to them as a great crime what in themselves they merely consider a little defect.”

MenWomenSinVirtueFeminismMoralityEmpowermentPrejudiceGenderInequalityHypocrisyMisogynySlanderStereotypesStrength Of CharacterFrailtyConstancySocial NormsPreconceptionsFirmnessDouble StandardsViceClichés
Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.”

MenWomenFeminismSelf EsteemDignityPrejudiceGenderWitHypocrisyMisogynyBeliefsSlanderStereotypesPreconceptionsDouble StandardsInsultsClichésConvictionsReparteeSelf ImportanceAttacks
Book:Le Débat Sur Le Roman De La Rose
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“[S]ince you are angry at me without reason, you attack me harshly with, "Oh outrageous presumption! Oh excessively foolish pride! Oh opinion uttered too quickly and thoughtlessly by the mouth of a woman! A woman who condemns a man of high understanding and dedicated study, a man who, by great labour and mature deliberation, has made the very noble book of the Rose, which surpasses all others that were ever written in French. When you have read this book a hundred times, provided you have understood the greater part of it, you will discover that you could never have put your time and intellect to better use!" My answer: Oh man deceived by willful opinion! I could assuredly answer but I prefer not to do it with insult, although, groundlessly, you yourself slander me with ugly accusations. Oh darkened understanding! Oh perverted knowledge ... A simple little housewife sustained by the doctrine of Holy Church could criticise your error!”

MenWomenFeminismSelf EsteemDignityPrejudiceGenderWitHypocrisyMisogynyBeliefsSlanderStereotypesPreconceptionsDouble StandardsInsultsClichésConvictionsReparteeSelf ImportanceAttacks
Book:Le Débat Sur Le Roman De La Rose
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“[J]ust the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men – and learned men among them – have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behaviour. Not only one or two ... but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators – it would take too long to mention their names – it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realise how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behaviour and character of women.”

MenCharacterWomenFeminismBooksMoralityExpectationsEmpowermentPrejudiceGenderInequalityHypocrisyBehaviourMisogynySlanderStereotypesSocial NormsReality CheckPreconceptionsDouble StandardsInsultsConductImpartialityClichés
Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“Loulie frowned. "Is something wrong, ya sayyid?" The hunter flushed. "Forgive me, merchant. You are younger than I expected." Loulie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew it was not just a matter of youth. Men were praised for being successful at a young age, but a successful woman was a perplexing puzzle. Most men did not know how to respond to her confidence. She raised a brow. "No, forgive me. I should not have spoke so sharply to a child.”

AgeSuccessfulConfidenceRespectWomanPreconceptions
Book:The Stardust Thief
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“When you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. ... And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame?”

SinFeminismMoralityMen And WomenEmpowermentGenderInequalityHypocrisyMisogynyStereotypesSocial NormsPreconceptionsDouble StandardsViceSelf PerceptionClichés
Book:The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men
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“What is a woman's place in this modern world? Jasnah Kholin's words read. I rebel against this question, though so many of my peers ask it. The inherent bias in the inquiry seems invisible to so many of them. They consider themselves progressive because they are willing to challenge many of the assumptions of the past. They ignore the greater assumption--that a 'place' for women must be defined and set forth to begin with. Half of the population must somehow be reduced to the role arrived at by a single conversation. No matter how broad that role is, it will be--by-nature--a reduction from the infinite variety that is womanhood. I say that there is no role for women--there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. For some, it will be the role of scholar; for others, it will be the role of wife. For others, it will be both. For yet others, it will be neither. Do not mistake me in assuming I value one woman's role above another. My point is not to stratify our society--we have done that far to well already--my point is to diversify our discourse. A woman's strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role. It is amazing to me that I even have to make this point, as I see it as the very foundation of our conversation.”

PoliticsWomenFreedomWomanChoiceFree WillSexismWomanhoodScholarshipGender RolesPreconceptionsPhilosphy
Book:Words of Radiance
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“It was a cultural revolution, and was not directed at instituting economic changes. He could thus appeal to old prejudices without threatening the existing economic system. This appealed, above all, to white-collar workers and the small entrepreneurs, as some of the statistics presented in this book will demonstrate. It was their kind of revolution: the ideology would give them a new status, free them from isolation in the industrial society, and give them a purpose in life. But it would not threaten any of their vested interests; indeed it would reinforce their bourgeois predilections toward family...and restore the 'good old values' which had been so sadly dismantled by modernity.”

ValuesPrejudiceNostalgiaGermanyMiddle ClassModernityBourgeoisNazismHitlerPreconceptionsWhite CollarIndustrialismPre World War Ii
Book:Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich
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“Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best -- making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred -- secret hatred: there is disgust -- unspoken disgust: there is treachery -- family treachery: there is vice -- deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies ... All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death.”

DeathForceWomenMarriageSocietyExpectationsHatredInjusticeHypocrisyUnhappinessContemptDecayDemonsFamily RelationshipsScornIdolatryMatrimonyMarried LifeDiscordFamiliesSocial NormsCaptivityDisparityPreconceptionsViceWorldlinessDisgustDomestic LifeDisharmonyLovelessnessFalse BeliefUnfreedom
Book:Shirley
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“Perhaps it was that I wanted to see what I had learned, what I had read, what I had imagined, that I would never be able to see the city of London without seeing it through the overarching scrim of every description of it I had read before. When I turn the corner into a small, quiet, leafy square, am I really seeing it fresh, or am I both looking and remembering? [...] This is both the beauty and excitement of London, and its cross to bear, too. There is a tendency for visitors to turn the place into a theme park, the Disney World of social class, innate dignity, crooked streets, and grand houses, with a cavalcade of monarchs as varied and cartoony as Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and, at least in the opinion of various Briths broadhseets, Goofy. They come, not to see what London is, or even what it was, but to confirm a kind of picture-postcard view of both, all red telephone kiosks and fog-wreathed alleyways.”

TruthImaginationCitiesFictionLondonReality CheckPreconceptionsClichésFictional LondonRealiyLiterary London
Book:Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City
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“Quite a lot of what passes itself off as dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own choices (pursuing a creative career instead of making money; breastfeeding over formula; not having children in an overpopulated world) as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others' as selfish and wrong. So it's easy to overlook that it all arises out of insecurity.”

PrejudicesPreconceptionsRational Debate
Book:We Learn Nothing
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“Erlaube," fuhr Meister Abraham fort, "erlaube, mein Johannes, mit dem Just magst du mich kaum vergleichen. Er rettete einen Pudel, ein Tier, das jeder gern um sich duldet, von dem sogar angenehme Dienstleistungen zu erwarten, mittelst Apportieren, Handschuhe-, Tabaksbeutel- und Pfeife-Nachtragen usw., aber ich rettete einen Kater, ein Tier, vonr dem sich viele entsetzen, das allgemein als perfid, keiner sanften, wohlwollenden Gesinnung, keiner offenherzigen Freundschaft fähig ausgeschrieen wird, das niemals ganz und gar die feindliche Stellung gegen den Mensch aufgibt, ja, einen Kater rettete ich aus purer uneigennütziger Menschenliebe ... Es ist das gescheiteste, artigste, ja witzigste Tier der Art, das man sehen kann, dem es nur noch an der höhern Bildung fehlt, die du, mein lieber Johannes, ihm mit leichter Mühe beibringen wirst.”

PerceptionPrejudiceDogsCatsStereotypesPreconceptionsPoodles
Book:The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr
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“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

InspirationalFactsSciencePeaceNatureLearningRiskHumblePreparationPeace Of MindAbyssOpen MindedPreconceptions
Book:Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1
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“When our intellect has shaken off its many opinions about created things, then the inner principle of truth appears clearly to it, providing it with a foundation of real knowledge and removing its former preconceptions as though removing scales from eyes, as happened in the case of St. Paul (cf. Acts 9:18). For an understanding of Scripture that does not go beyond the literal meaning, and a view of the sensible world that relies exclusively on sense perception, are indeed scales, blinding the soul's visionary faculty and preventing access to the pure Logos of truth.”

WorldDoeRealSoulEyeChristianUnderstandingViewsOpinionPrinciplesCasesHappenedPurePerceptionFoundationIntellectAccessScriptureScalesFormerRelyOrthodoxFacultySensibleProvidingVisionariesLiteralPreventingCfsLogosPreconceptionsReal KnowledgeSense Perception
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“Science starts with preconception, with the common culture, and with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to use these corrections for the designing of further observation and for more refined experiment. And as it moves along this course the nature of the evidence and experience that nourish it becomes more and more unfamiliar; it is not just the language that is strange [to common culture].”

UseMovingScienceCultureCoursesLanguageCommonDesignStrangeEvidenceDiscoveryConcernedExperimentsCommon SenseObservationParadoxRefinedUnfamiliarCorrectionsPreconceptionsCommon Culture
Author:J. Robert Oppenheimer
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“When the sovereign spirit within us is true to nature, it stands poised and ready to adjust to every change in circumstances and to seize each new opportunity. It doesn't approach an object with prejudice or preconception, but handles each thing dispassionately before embracing it and, if necessary, finds advantage in what opposes it. It is like fire in this regard. Whereas a feeble flame might suffocate under a pile of dry sticks, a robust fire consumes everything it touches. The more objects of any kind heaped on it, the higher it rises, the hotter it burns.”

IfsKindMightSpiritOpportunityFireObjectsReadyHigherCircumstancesApproachAdvantagePrejudiceRegardSticksHandleFlamesDrySovereignRobustPreconceptionsNew OpportunityHotter
Book:The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations
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“When Jesus came to earth, demons recognized him, the sick flocked to him, and sinners doused his feet and head with perfume. Meanwhile he offended pious Jews with their strict preconceptions of what God should be like. Their rejection makes me wonder, could religious types be doing just the reverse now? Could we be perpetuating an image of Jesus that fits our pious expectations but does not match the person portrayed so vividly in the Gospels?”

ShouldPersonsDoeEarthJesusReligiousWonderFeetTypeFitExpectationsSickJewRejectionDemonSinnerReverseStrictPerfumeOffendedPiousPreconceptionsPerpetuating
Book:The Jesus I Never Knew Study Guide
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“Travel opens different eyes to different things, shows things we've never seen before, shows the world from entirely different angles. That's the power of drawing and the power of travel. They both make the familiar unfamiliar and vice versa. They show what we all have in common and what we may have missed thanks to preconceptions that may have marred our vision.”

WorldMayDifferentShowsEyeCommonVisionVicesDrawingFamiliarThanksDifferent ThingsAngleVice VersaUnfamiliarPreconceptionsDifferent Angles
Author:Danny Gregory
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“Observation is the generative act in scientific discovery. For all its aberrations, the evidence of the senses is essentially to be relied upon provided we observe nature as a child does, without prejudices and preconceptions, but with that clear and candid vision which adults lose and scientists must strive to regain.”

ChildrenDoeLosesVisionClearEvidenceDiscoveryAdultsScientistPrejudiceStriveSensesObservationPreconceptionsScientific DiscoveryCandidAberration
Book:Induction and intuition in scientific thought
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“The first problem for all of us, men and woman, is not to learn, but to unlearn. We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up. Patriotism means obedience, age means wisdom, woman means submission, black means inferior: these are preconceptions imbedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are there.”

ThinkingKnowsMenGivingFirstsMayMeanProblemAgePastBlackChangeLearningCenturyFilledHonestlyObedienceBigotryInferiorsTerrifiedSubmissionPreconceptionsUnlearn
Author:Gloria Steinem
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“Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.”

MindLongFactsGovernmentTermChildhoodInformationPolicyFitIntentionNotionMakersBaggagePreconceptionsPolicy Makers
Author:Barbara Tuchman
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“We need many more intrepid women who set out to expand both their and our concepts of the world. We need them in writing just as we need them in politics. We need that sense of adventure, of reaching wider, delving deeper, pushing further afield, whether that field be geographical, intellectual, political, personal, or all of these and more. Enough with decorousness. Let us risk preconceptions and treasured philosophies, bodies and souls. Let us be big and bawdy and full of courage. Let's go.”

WorldNeedsWritingSoulEnoughPhilosophyBodyBigsPoliticalRiskFieldsAdventureIntellectualConceptsDeeperReachingPushingPreconceptionsTreasuredDelving
Author:Lesley Hazleton
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“We are dying of preconceptions, outworn rules, decaying flags, venomous religions, and sentimentalities. We need a new world. We've wrenched up all the old roots. The old men have no roots. They don't know it. They just go on talking and flailing away and falling down on the young with their tons of dead weight and their power. For the power is still there, in their life-in-death. But the roots are dead, and the land is poisoned for miles around them.”

KnowsMenWorldNeedsStillsYoungFallTalkingPowerLandDyingGoes OnRootsWeightMilesOld ManNew WorldFlagsFalling DownSentimentalityPreconceptionsVenomousFlailing
Book:The Inland Island
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“Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer ... But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable ... They are people willing to take social risks-to do things that others might disapprove of.”

PeopleNeedsIdeasMightAbleSocialChallengesCreativityImagineRiskDesignWillingDisciplineBrilliantPersistenceDreamerInnovatorsBrilliant IdeasDisagreeablePreconceptions
Author:Malcolm Gladwell
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“The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know-it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.”

KnowsShouldMindWholeAbleDesireHateBeliefWishInterestAttitudeImagineEmotionalMaterialsNegativeRelationDeterminedBiasSubjectiveSweepingLove And HateSuppressionPreconceptionsFear Of LoveHopes And FearsEmotional Life
Book:Mysticism and Logic
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“Science ... warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.”

TryingFactsScienceBeliefViewsTeachAtheismEvidenceStrongerCarefulAspirationBe CarefulConformHostilePreconceptions
Book:Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley, by His Son, Leonard Huxley
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“The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man.”

MenHumansSaidTodayKnownStudyModernMissingEvolutionEvidenceTablesInspiredNotionProofNosesCollectionsAncestorFossilsConvincingIncompleteModern ManPreconceptionsFragmentedHuman EvolutionHominidsConvincing Evidence
Author:John Reader
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“Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism are huge traditions of enormous importance, and they aren't monotheistic. Again, this reflects the fact that our preconceptions about what religion is are so influenced by Protestantism - either real Protestantism or the secularized Protestantism that dominates our culture - and its assumption that beliefs are the most important thing.”

ImportantRealFactsCultureBeliefHugeBuddhismTraditionImportanceImportant ThingsEnormousAssumptionHinduismPreconceptionsConfucianismProtestantism
Author:Robert Neelly Bellah
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“An experiment in nature, like a text in the Bible, is capable of different interpretations, according to the preconceptions of the interpreter.”

DifferentScienceNatureNaturalCapableExperimentsInterpretationInterpreterPreconceptionsDifferent Interpretations
Book:The Theological, Philosophical and Miscellaneous Works of the Rev. William Jones ...: To which is Prefixed a Short Account of His Life and Writings
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