Zadie Smith Quotes

One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, 'The good outnumber you, and we always will.'

The fear that ultimately leads to hate is something we need to change, and I want to do whatever I can to make the world a better place.

Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.

For me, there is only love and fear.

Love is seeing without eyes, hearing without ears; hatred is nothing.

We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate.

Love is love. And it's much better than hatred and fear.

Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.

Do you think you can cure the hatreds and the maladjustments of the world by hanging them? You simply show your ignorance and your hate when you say it. You may here and there cure hatred with love and understanding, but you can only add fuel to the flames by cruelty and hate.

You should think about the world and feel about your heart.

I just don't know that shame and fear need to be our teachers; rather, compassion, understanding, and love should be our guides.

When you are suffering, you become more understanding about yourself, but also about other people's sufferings too. That's the first step to understand somebody is to understand their sufferings. So then love follows.

I think for really good-hearted people, that idea of putting yourself in the shoes of a monster to figure out why they acted that way, that's a really frightening idea.

I try to be funny and not ignorant.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

He who hates vice hates men.

Marlon was so sensitive, you thought the poor guy just had a bad education.

Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel.

There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.

Love and compassion don't at all have to make us weak, or lead us to losing discernment and vision. We just have to learn how to find them. And see, in truth, what they bring us.