Margaret Halsey Quotes

Discrimination is not liberal. Arguing against discrimination is not intolerance.

If we are going to teach the world not to hate the other, then we will have to start with children.

In fact, I am a pessimist. But when I'm making a film, I don't want to transfer my pessimism onto children. I keep it at bay. I don't believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children, children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There's no need to force our own visions onto them.

Unless the schools provide our children with a vision of human possibility that enlightens and empowers them with knowledge and taste, they will simply play their role in someone else's marketing schemes. Unless they understand deeply the sources of our democracy, they will take it for granted and fail to exercise their rights and responsibilities.

Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice.

There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.

The greatest respect is owed to a child.

I like the diversity that my children are exposed to every day. I love the way their brains work. Joe [her son] turns to me the other day and says, ‘One day, I will have a girlfriend. But I might have a boyfriend. If I’m gay.’ He’s 7! And I said, ‘You might have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, darling.’ And he said, ‘Which would you prefer?’ And I said, ‘My love, that would be entirely up to you, and it doesn’t make any difference to me.’ But that he knows! It’s a real privilege. Talk about the best education.

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong.

The mind that doggedly insists on prejudice often has not intelligence enough to change.

Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.

Every gay person must come out.... Once they realize we are indeed their children, we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all.

Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust.

I've told you before. You shouldn't judge people based on appearances and your preconceptions.

Everyone deserves the best start in life, which is what UNICEF is working to provide the world's most vulnerable children. Education is essential to a child's development. I hope that as an Ambassador I can encourage people to join UNICEF's mission to make education a reality for children throughout the world.

The chief enemy of peace is the spirit of unreason itself: an inability to conceive alternatives, an unwillingness to reconsider old prejudices, to part with ideological obsessions, to entertain new ideas or to improve new plans.

When people sit across from people - gay, straight, whatever - and they talk, they find out that people they may have been demonizing for their lifetime aren't the demons we've expected them to be.

I put a lot of emphasis on childrens issues. Children are many times ignored because they dont vote, and they dont have lobby groups.

We're the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C'mon be a glorified wreck like me.

Children are young, but they're not naive. And they're honest. They're not going to keep wide awake if the story is boring. When they get excited you can see it in their eyes.

Travel is lethal to prejudice.

From my membership in all of these groups I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.

God of Truth and Justice can never create distinctions of high and low among His own children.

The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.

Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you'll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!