Race quotes
4.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside race — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"One of the big mistakes they made in Europe is that the circumstances in which you most frequently read or hear the word "race" or "racism" in Europe applies to Muslims. Which is not a race. It is a religion. You can convert to this. You cannot convert your race. I could become a Muslim. I could not become a Chinese person or a black person. So they constantly use that in Europe."
"I'm not against trade...but they're not really trade deals. They're really investment deals between international corporations...They're saying we want to get a race to the bottom so we can exploit the most unfortunate worker."
"An enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races."
"The institution of royalty in any form is an insult to the human race."
"Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?"
"Let me ask you. If someone called you and offered you a ride in the Indianapolis 500 and you were a male race car driver, would you turn the ride down?"
"When I meet a new person, I don’t see race or religion. I look deeper. We must learn to satisfy our conflicts peacefully and to respect one another."
"The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader's charisma. What matters is the leader's mission."
"The human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and have political authority in the cities become real philosophers."
"Seems fairly clear that you fix a breed by LIMITING the amount of alien infiltration. You make a race by homogeneity and by avoiding INbreeding.... No argument has ever been sprouted against it. You like it in dogs and horses."
"The artist is the antenna of the race."
"Some racists still reject the plain testimony written in the DNA that all the races are not only human but nearly indistinguishable. . . ."
"I've often been a little concerned by people who say they are color-blind, people who claim, in some ways, not to be aware of race, and I hope that those who will be looking for a vision of the future will be a little more honest, and say race actually does matter."
"The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival."
"Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne...Oh no! It's a...long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting."
"Any brief military advantage the USA might gain with nuclear weapons would be offset by political and psychological losses and damage to American prestige. The United States might even touch off a worldwide armaments race."
"In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead."
"Someone must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen to me to do so. The awful death roll called every week is appalling, not only because of the lives taken, the cruelty and outrage to the victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters."
"Oh, a very useful philosophical animal, your average tortoise. Outrunning metaphorical arrows, beating hares in races... very handy."
"If I have a foreign accent—which I much regret—it is cosmopolitan, but not Teutonic. I am a daughter of the great Jewish race, and my somewhat uncultivated language is the outcome of our enforced wanderings."
