Race quotes
4.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside race — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Back when we were Neanderthals or whatever, we evolved to think along tribal lines. Survival was based on this idea of who are we and who are the others who will come and take our resources. I think it's an animal and a human thing that we all see in terms of us vs. them, and race is a very easy way to separate who is us and who is them."
"We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration."
"I represent the mixed race community, which I think gets left out a lot. I always describe myself as being mixed race."
"I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race."
"There is no loftier mission than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals, and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race."
"Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest places."
"I've always wanted to race cars, ever since I was a young boy, as I think a lot of guys have."
"The human race is like a bird and it needs both wings to be able to fly. And, at the moment, one of is wings is clipped an we're never going to be able to fly as high."
"When all the people covered in tattoos turn about 70 years old, they're going to look like a strange race of melting clowns."
"Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform meaningfully all our lives"
"The human race finds itself in a better situation when it has the higher level of freedom."
"It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant."
"In the abundance of water a fool is thirsty."
"Obviously, you always want to win, but you want to win by skiing a race that you're proud of and you feel like you really challenged yourself and left it all out there."
"If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race."
"For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!"
"Poetry fettered fetters the human race."
"The Turkish Government began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor. The clearance of the race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so great, could well be."
"Planetary democracy does not yet exist but our global civilization is already preparing a place for it. It is the very Earth we inhabit linked with Heaven above us. Only in this setting can the mutuality and the commonality of the human race be newly created with reverence and gratitude for that which transcends each of us and all of us together."
"The beginning as well as the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law, that hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some providential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society, then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation, and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure some living being, it matters not who."
