WIST Quotations

Serling, Rod -- Commencement Address, Binghamton Central High School, Binghamton, New York (28 Jan 1968)

Dave — Tue, 17 May 2022 13:47:24 +0000

Are you tough enough to face one of the uglier stains upon the fabric of our democracy, prejudice? It’s the basic root of most evil. It’s a part of the sickness of man. And it’s a part of man’s admission, his constant sick admission, that to exist he must find a scapegoat. To explain away his own deficiencies, he must try to find someone who he believes more deficient. If you find yourself thinking words like “Nigger”, or “Kike”, or “Pollock”, or “Wop”, or “Bohunk”, or “Sheenie”, or “Dago”, consign them to the lexicon of race-haters who aren’t fit to breathe the same air as you are. Make your judgment of your fellow-man on what he says and what he believes and the way he acts. Be tough enough, please, to live with prejudice and give battle to it. It warps, it poisons, it distorts and it is self-destructive. It has fallout worse than a bomb … and worst of all it cheapens and demeans anyone who permits himself the luxury of hating.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Commencement Address, Binghamton Central High School, Binghamton, New York (28 Jan 1968)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 6 (1963)

Dave — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 16:42:39 +0000

Every group feels strong once it has found a scapegoat.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 6 (1963)
(Source)

Hoffer, Eric -- Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 126 (1955)

Dave — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:04:29 +0000

To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews, and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 126 (1955)
(Source)

Serling, Rod -- Twilight Zone, 1×02 “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (4 Mar 1960)

Dave — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:13:58 +0000

NARRATOR: The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices — to be found in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to … the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Twilight Zone, 1×02 “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (4 Mar 1960)

Peter, Lawrence J. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)