Thomas Jefferson Quotes

It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.

See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.

The frontal region of the Negro skull has been repeatedly shown to be much smaller than that of the Caucasian. Considering this fact, the conclusion is reached that the Negro has a smaller proportion of the faculties pertaining to the frontal lobe than the Caucasian. The Negro, then, lacks reason, judgment, apperception, affection, self-control, will power, orientation, ethical and esthetic attributes, and the relation of the ego (of personality or self) to environment…. The skull capacity of the Negro has been repeatedly demonstrated to be less than that of the Caucasian

Recapitulation provided a convenient focus for the persuasive racism of white scientists; they looked to the activities of their own children for comparison with normal adult behavior in lower races.

Race differences show up early in life.

A black man is no more an undeveloped white man than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare.

Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences.

The capacity of the crania of the Mongol, Indian and Negro, and all dark skinned races, is smaller than that of the pure white man.

When you will explain why, in His wisdom, He made one mountain overtop another mountain--formed one ocean larger than another ocean--planned one valley wider than another valley; when you can make me understand why He made the oak stronger than its neighbor--the rainbow more beautiful than the storm-cloud--the lily more lovely than the lilac; when you will tell me the reason that Providence ordained that the fair Saxon should be permitted to express, in the blush upon her face, all the emotions of her soul, while the African knows not the signification of the word--when these things are made clear to me, I will tell you how and why He has made the African the servant of the Anglo-Saxon race, but not till then. They were born and bred servants, they cannot be masters

Race feeling may be called prejudice by those whose careers are cramped by it, but it is a natural antipathy which serves to maintain the purity of type. The unfortunate fact that nearly all species of men interbreed freely leaves us no choice in the matter. Either the races must be kept apart by artificial devices of this sort, or else they ultimately amalgamate, and in the offspring the more generalized or lower type prevails

What right do white racist, who believe their race is superior, have for complaining about black racists, who see something special in their own race? What right do black racists, who see a special character in their race, have for complaining about white racists?

Great influence has at all times been ascribed to climate... [but] we have abundance of proof that [differences of climate] are entirely inadequate to account for the differences between the different races of men.

Having examined the principal points in which the several tribes of the human species differ from each other... I proceed to inquire whether the diversities enumerated ... are to be considered as characteristic distinctions coeval with the origin of the species, or as a result of subsequent variation; and in the event of the latter... whether they are the effect of external... causes, or of native or congenital variety.

The intellectual and moral character of the European is deteriorated by the mixture of black or red blood.

I think that unlearning race for black people is more along the lines of seriously saying blackness isn't real, race isn't real.

And what happens a lot of times when - let's just speak specifically white and black - when white or black people feel misunderstood when it comes to talking about race, they immediately get defensive.

The arrogance of race prejudice is an arrogance which defies what is scientifically known of human races.

The existence of any pure race with special endowments is a myth, as is the belief that there are races all of whose members are foredoomed to eternal inferiority.

I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilization of their complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation.

The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese.

It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites.

The idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence.

The question of whether one alleges the Superiority or Inferiority of any given race is irrelevant; racism has only one psychological root: the racist's sense of his own Inferiority.

As a race, the African is inferior to the white man. Subordination to the white man is his normal condition. He is not his equal by nature and cannot be made so by human laws or human institutions. Our system, therefore, so far as regards this inferior race, rests upon this great immutable law of nature.

It depends on how you define the word "racialist." If you mean being conscious of the differences between men and nations, and from that, races, then we are all racialists. However, if you mean a man who despises a human being because he belongs to another race, or a man who believes that one race is inherently superior to another, then the answer is emphatically "No."