Pride and Prejudice

“ He could not look around without the consciousness of power.
I frankly confess that I have a respect for family pride. If it be a prejudice, it is prejudice in its most picturesque shape; but I hold that it is connected with some of the noblest feelings in our nature. ”

“ They were so strongly fixed in their pride and prejudices against social equality that they pursued their own gentle, even way, untouched by the convulsions and throes of fierce indignation around them. ”

“ But there are mountains of established law and custom to overcome; a wilderness of prejudice to be subdued; a powerful foe of selfishness and self-interest to overthrow; wild beasts of pride, envy, malice, and hate to destroy. ”

“ But, whether this fear be the voice of truth or the suggestion of prejudice, that woman shall not be held blameless, who, under the influence of indolence, pride, fashion, or avarice, shall neglect, abuse, or oppress, the humblest of her sex who goes forth from these walls into the broad and dangerous path of life. ”

“ Indeed, there is such a thing as a prejudice against them, arising from their very state of poverty, which ought greatly to be guarded against: a kind of prejudice, to which perhaps most of us, upon some occasions, and in some degree, may inattentively be liable, but which pride and interest may easily work up to a settled hatred of them ”

“ The moralist, indeed, might have noted that a meaner kind of pride, the morbid fear of vulgarity, lent secret strength to the intellectual prejudice, which realised duty as the renunciation of all finite objects, the fastidious refusal to be or do any limited thing. ”

“ They have not the feeling, because it is a creature of education and habit.
While we write, there are now playing at our right, a few steps away, a colored and a white child, with all the affection and harmony of feeling, as though prejudice had always been unknown.
Prejudice overlooks all that is noble and grand in man's being. ”

“ Nor is this the tribute of prejudice, as those who look up to all superiority with envy love to aver; the impartial and candid reflectors upon human frailty, who, in viewing it, see with its elevation its surrounding temptations, will call it but the tribute of justice. ”

“ 28 The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. ”

“ "Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation." ”

“ Your question, my dear girl, is not an easy one to answer, for moral philosophy does not know a more important one, or a more difficult one to decide; it is a lesson which lasts throughout life. I will tell you in a few words that we call prejudice every so-called duty for the existence of which we find no reason in nature. ”

“ Recognition of this truth requires abandonment of prejudice—prejudice of every kind—race, class, colour, creed, nation, sex, degree of material civilization, everything which enables people to consider themselves superior to others. ”

“ If it is a prejudice, how comes it that it is general to all times and countries? Who communicated it to the human race? who was strong and powerful enough to make all men adopt it? How did it happen that the passions, when in possession of their liberty, renounced it, and suffered a bridle to be put on them? ”

“ As to myself—having in my veins, though but in a slight degree, the blood of a despised, crushed, and persecuted people, I ask no favors of the people of this country, and get none save from those whose Christianity is not hypocrisy, and who are willing to 'do unto others as they would that others should do unto them'—and who regard all human beings who are equal in character as equal to one another. ”

“ The album, which arrived yesterday morning, is very precious to us, as it enables us to live altogether beside you—in imagination.
“Prejudice walking to and fro in flesh and blood is my horror, and, alas, a phenomenon so common; and people plume themselves so much upon their prejudices, as signs of decision of character and greatness of mind, nay of true patriotism; and all the while they are simply the product of narrowness of intellect and narrowness of heart.” ”

“ I am going now truly to recount a life which from the time of its ceasing has been, in the other world, the continual subject of the cavils of contending parties; the one making me as black as hell, the other as pure and innocent as the inhabitants of this blessed place; the mist of prejudice blinding their eyes, and zeal for what they themselves profess, making everything appear in that light which they think most conduces to its honor. ”

“ I honoured them most of all for what they have been most cried down for—the boldness and freedom from prejudice with which they treated the subject of family, the most important of any, and needing more fundamental alterations than remain to be made in any other great social institution, but on which scarcely any reformer has the courage to touch. ”

“ Why won’t you begin to think, and no longer dream away your Time in a wretched incogitancy? Why does not a generous Emulation fire your hearts and inspire you with Noble and becoming Resentments? The Men of Equity are so just as to confess the errors which the Proud and inconsiderate had imbib’d to your prejudice, and if you still allow them the preference in Ingenuity, they’re convinc’d it is not because you must, but because you will. Can you be in Love with servitude and folly? Can you dote on a mean, ignorant and ignoble Life? ”

“ Assuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of prepossession, of liking and of disliking, of love and of hate, it tends always to reconstruct and to dominate every mode of association and every social grouping. ”

“ I wish to live peaceably, but I have lately experienced so many instances of your most bare-faced and wanton oppression, to my prejudice, that there’s no longer a doubt with me what course I must be under the disagreeable necessity to take, that I may obtain redress and do justice to myself and family. ”

“ True, Sir; but the few who burst the bonds of prejudice, and claim the privilege of thinking, and judging, and acting for themselves, though contemned and reproached by the multitude, are the pioneers of an adventurous and ever active benevolence, the ornaments and benefactors of the age and the country in which they live. ”

“ What though the heart be purer than the snow which covers the mountain tops, can they ever claim a position among the favorites of fortune, when accompanied by beggary? Philanthropists, and philosophers tell us they can, but the demon, Prejudice, has erected a banner, which can never be pulled down, until man resumes the patriarchal life of centuries ago, and society, the mockery by which we claim civilization was built up, is removed from the earth, and mankind can mingle with each other in free and unrestricted intercourse. ”

“ This passive instinct he called "prejudice"—the unreasoning and unquestioning attachment to the family and "the little platoon we belong to in society," from which our affection, coincident always with a feeling of contented obligation, is gradually enlarged to take in the peculiar institutions of our country; "prejudice renders a man's virtues his habits, ... through just prejudice his duty becomes a part of his nature." ”

“ Strange, that men who have themselves loved and begotten should thus for a moment imagine that a small social prejudice, or a narrow religious formula, can break the purpose of a young and vigorous passion. ”

“ One needs to feel it, and to wither under its effects, to know it; and the colored men of the United States, wherever found, and in whatever circumstances, are living epistles, which may be read by all men in proof of all that is paralyzing to enterprise, destructive to ambition, ruinous to character, crushing to mind, and painful to the soul, in the monster, Prejudice. ”

“ If benevolence to that worst part, be our motive, can we send them away from our liberty, and our light, and our laws, and our power, and our benevolence, to a foreign uncivilized and heathen land?
13. If gratification of prejudice be our motive, how much better is it, to yield to prejudice than to crucify it?—to flatter, than to give it no quarter?
14. If it be true, that every sinner must repent or perish, what must be the fate of those who strive to put away the annoyance produced by an evil, without repenting of the sin which produces it? ”

“ Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often{26} used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us.” ”

“ Do you imagine it is only the well-born and the noble who have pride? Do you fancy that we poor creatures of the soil do not resent in our hearts the haughty contempt by which you separate your lot from ours? Do you believe it is in human nature to concede a superiority which is to extend not to mere modes of life and enjoyments, to power, and place, and influence, but to feelings, to sentiments, to affections? In one word, are you to have the whole monopoly of pride, and only leave to us so much as the honour of ‘pertaining’ to you? ”

“ These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. ”

“ In your part of the country, gentlemen, that which we should naturally appeal to as the friend of order and stability—property—is blindly against us; prejudice is also against us; and we have nothing left to which we can appeal but human nature and the common privilege of manhood. ”

“ If we could but define certain words, and make that definition recognized by society, which is drawn by reason, instead of fashion and prejudice, how much more happy might we not be! Then should we know 5 the real meaning of the words, “liberty, glory, honour, love, courage,”—now fantastic idols, at whose shrine so much blood has been vainly shed!—while, by a strange perversion of human intellect, satisfaction has been considered to consist in the probable aggravation of our own sufferings, and the misery of all those whom we hold dear. ”

“ Men will honor your honest independence, exercised against so much to bias and prejudice, so much to tempt and dazzle you; and Heaven will approve and bless you. But with such sentiments,” he added, in tenderly expostulating accents—“with such sentiments, dear lady, will you doom me to plead my heart's cause in vain? Will you still adhere to a lover active in the work of oppression which you condemn, and reject his rival, equally active in the cause you approve and pray for?” ”

“ But when I see a people pinioned by so many discouragements, and bruised under such a complicated and heavy mass of difficulties as the colored people, steadily and surely elevating themselves above their circumstances; when I behold the immense mountain of prejudice that rests upon them, tottering and almost rising bodily from its base, I am struck with a degree of admiration and amazement that I seldom feel on any other occasion, at the intrinsic strength and infinite tendencies of humanity. ”

“ A gentleman present, distinguished for logical acumen and subtlety, and who had devoted no small portion of the last twenty-five years to the study and elucidation of this very question, held the opposite view, that prejudice is innate and unconquerable. ”

“ There used to be some foundation for this charge, but the counter plea of lack of sympathy and distrust of country was still more true, and an explanation and, in a large measure, a justification of the prejudice. True strength and refinement of character has always in the end commanded the respect and admiration of our people, but they have been roughly suspicious of any class isolation or assumption of superiority. ”

“ I mean that just, noble and virtuous love, which they owe to their country. In some, I see no kind of affection for their country at all; in others, I perceive only a criminal affection, which is vulgarly called national prejudice. ”

“ We find that we have really been the offender, going about with a moral tape-measure graduated by ourselves, and measuring the opposite party with a serene conceit which has called itself principle or honor, or some high-sounding name, while it was really nothing but prejudice. ”

“ Every absorbing passion and every ignoble impulse—love of fame, religious zeal, national prejudice, desire of novelty, insatiable cupidity, private malice—attracted the roving, the licentious, and the unprincipled to the standard of the Cross. ”

“ You can persuade any one in five minutes that he or she belongs to some special and blessed and privileged sort of human being; it takes a lifetime to destroy that persuasion. There are these confounded differences of colour, of eye and brow, of nose or hair, small differences in themselves except that they give a foothold and foundation for tremendous fortifications of prejudice and tradition, in which hostilities and hatreds may gather. ”

“ Noble and illustrious bravery of the soul, which, when the yelling fiends of popular passion and prejudice beset the ascending pathway of virtue, can look to conscience, to posterity, and to God, and defy them all! Follow their example, gentlemen, and, whatever fierce sounds of public condemnation may be now rung in your ears, you will have the same glorious reward, and your children, and all the good men of your country, will honor your memories. ”

“ After such wise, by turning the innocent word 'prejudice' into a weapon of attack against everything which restrained vice, crime, illicit pleasure, violence, and social profligacy—against whatever, in short, rationally deserves to be called prejudice—the human race plunged willingly and universally into a pitiable and apparently immedicable state of pure unvarnished prejudice. ”

“ Observing the prevailing power of prejudice, and the easiness of mankind to be imposed upon, especially on the side of uncharitableness, we have the less wondered at the treatment which we, as a people, have suffered. ”