John McGinn Quotes

Maybe it's because I'm English, but in terms of how people perceive us I only pick up on the negative side of it.

One of the very, very exciting things I have found here in L.A. is that no one talks to you about being Scottish. Whereas, if you are in London and you are trying to put films together and be a film-maker, there is a kind of unspoken sense that, if you are Scottish, you have something to overcome or else you cannot really do that project.

People have an image of Italians. When I go somewhere in the world, I don't care where it is, when they look at me it's not about my intelligence. It's who can I beat up.

Every country has an aspect to it that rubs up people the wrong way.

After a while, you get tired of being the official Scot and defending everything Scottish.

If, as a Spaniard, I am so often offended by the stereotypes that abound regarding my country, how can I accept and repeat the ones that fall even more heavily upon Israel?

Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists.

I was born in this country. I serve this country every day in my work. I am loyal to this country. I shouldn’t have to state my loyalty. Unfortunately because of the color of my skin and the culture I come from there are some who suspect our loyalty.

I'm Scottish, but I also feel British at that same time.

At the University of Miami in the U.S., people thought I was there only because I was Bob Marley's son. I had to prove myself on the football field and soon earned the respect of my peers.

You always feel like you've got something to prove, whether it be to yourself or somebody else. I can think of plenty of people along the way telling me I'll be nothing, working at McDonald's, doing things like that. The whole time, you're just trying to prove them wrong.

The left think that this special place in the world, the United States of America, it just happened. It just is. And it's our responsibility, as those who are lucky and fortunate enough, to happen to have been born here. It is incumbent upon us to share that same luck and good fortune with everybody else. Otherwise we are mean, selfish, polarized, partisan, extremist, racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, whatever.

Who hateth me but for my happiness? Or who is honored now but for his wealth? Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty.

I'M HOPELESS, because I've lived long enough to expect things like this to continue to happen. I'm not surprised and at some point my little children are going to inherit the weight of being a minority and all that it entails.

By habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming up. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up-often through oppression, unjust discrimination and prejudice-but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and property, there is no power on earth than can permanently stay our progress.

Friends started saying, "Oh, don't come. No vengas. It's dangerous for us, and we live here." Then there's also the issue, if you go back, and you happen to be Mexican-American, you get treated very differently [in Mexico] than if you're blond. If you say something wrong, they say, "Why don't you learn your mother tongue?"

I heard someone say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit.

Every time somebody ever told you that you weren't gonna amount to anything, you know, that's your time to shine, you know? You can show everybody and prove to yourself what you're doing is real and that it counts and that it makes a difference.

Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.

It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews. The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.

When employees underperform, a leader tells them so.

If you ignore somebody's record and only focus on something that happened 25 years ago when all they were doing even then was trying to stand up for a minority group that felt excluded and discriminated against, then I don't - I think that is a distortion of a person's record. I mean, a person's record is full, not just the parts that you want to use against them.

Racism is a learned affliction and anything that is learned can be unlearned

We Scots have a fierce pride in the things we do that others can never appreciate. I am the British No. 1, but I would prefer to be the British No. 1 from Scotland every time.

The South African native is probably the one impossible person to train in the entire world; he is probably impossible by any human standard.