Alain de Botton Quotes

The mistake we make with many people is that we assume that we have the model. It is a type of condescension.

Prejudices save time.

I think any stereotyping is too much.

It's not a stereotype if it's always true.

Names are what people sometimes use to excuse their thoughts and actions towards you.

It's just sad that one's attitude is always speculated, even if you've not done something.

Color don't mean anything. People gonna try to put you in a place one way or the other.

The trouble is that people are all too ready to jump to conclusions about anybody who they think looks a bit strange. They think you must be mentally subnormal.

All of us make assumptions about what somebody's potential is, because we all think of why somebody can or can't do something. We make terrible assumptions.

It was behaviour that I thought not far from racism, sexism or any other kind of prejudice or snobbery. 'Because you are not cute, I do not want to know you' was, to me, hardly different from suggesting 'because you are gay, I dislike you

My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me!

There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future.

People have a preconceived notion about who I am and it's interesting. It's like picking who you want to win for the Oscars and not seeing the movie.

And just like that, I'd been assessed and judged. Nurse Fashoda didn't know the first thing about me but she'd taken one look at my face and now she reckoned she knew my whole life story -- what had gone before and what was yet to come.

We take it for granted we know the whole story - We judge a book by its cover and read what we want between selected lines.

To be prejudiced is always to be weak

They judge me like a picture book, by the colors, like they forgot to read.

Never suffer the prejudice of the eye to determine the heart.

You can have examples of reasons to hate people, but if you analyze those reasons it's like, Oh, I'm hating that person based on one thing they did, but I don't actually know them well enough to hate them.

Stop labeling people just because they're not like you.

No matter what I say, honestly, people would only judge me the way they want to.

It is a curious fact that of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as that tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion.

You see what you expect to see, Severus.

Israeli murderers are called "commandos," Arab commandos are called "terrorists."

Certain names always awake certain prejudices.