Variety

If black or red skins or any other skin of color is disgraceful to God, it appears that he has disgraced himself a great deal -- for he has made fifteen colored people to one white and placed them here upon this earth.
~ William Apess, The Experiences of Five Christian Indians of the Pequot Tribe (1833).

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.
~ Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky), Mercure de France (Paris) no. 33 (1 April 1911).

It's the same the whole world over,
It's the poor what gets the blame,
It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
Isn't it a blooming shame?
~ Billy Bennett, in Almost a Gentleman (audio CD; 22 July 1997). She Was Poor But She Was Honest

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called "divisive" or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.
~ William John Bennett, The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (February 1992).

My mother bore me in the southern wild.
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereav'd of light.
~ William Blake, from Songs of Innocence (1789). The Little Black Boy

The United States is virtually the only nation in the world where so many people from so many parts of the world and so many faiths live together in peace and understanding, and we cannot reward these criminals who committed these acts with allowing the seeds of discord to sprout in the United States.
~ Bill Blaul, CNN TV (19 September 2001). William Blaul: The Red Cross response

I found myself in racial situations for which I, as a person of a different race, had no frame of reference. I sensed the tension created by always being on guard, by never totally relaxing. I felt the pain of racial arrogance directed my way. I knew the loneliness of being white in a black world. And I realized how much I will never know about what it is to be black in America.
~ Bill Bradley, in Parade Magazine (18 October 1998). What I Learned About Respect

I hope when sweet victory
With my plough and hoe
Now I want you to tell me brother
What you gonna do about the old Jim Crow?
~ William Lee Conley ("Big Bill") Broonzy, Black, Brown and White (Song, September 1951).

It seems to me that the idea traditionally defended of endeavoring to maintain existing ethnic balances simply doesn't work any more.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., Letter to Jared Taylor (8 August 2000).

Life in all its rich variety, take a little, leave a little.
~ William S. Burroughs, in Spare Ass Annie And Other Tales (1993 album). Words of Advice for Young People

In nearly all the dealings of the white man with the red ... the mistake of judging and treating Indians by European standards has been made. Indian character is worth the study, if we will only take the trouble to divest ourselves of the notion that all men should be like ourselves. There is so much of simplicity and cunning, so much ... quickness, sense of humor, credulousness, power of observation, faith and fun and selfishness mixed up together in the red man's mental composition, that the person who will find nothing in Indian character worth studying will be likely to start from a base of nullity in his own brain system.
~ Sir William Francis Butler, (1872-73).

Being strong in life is being strong amid differences while accepting the fact that your own self can be a considerable imposition upon everyone you meet. I urge you to consider your own oddity before you are troubled or offended by that of others. And I urge you, amid all the differences present to the eye and mind, to reach out and create the bonds that will sustain the commonwealth that will protect us all. We are meant to be here together.
~ William M. Chace, in Wesleyan LXII, No. 2 (Fall 1989). The Language of Action

All men have the same rational nature and the same power of conscience, and all are equally made for indefinite improvement of these divine faculties, and for the happiness to be found in their virtuous use. Who, that comprehends these gifts, does not see that the diversities of the race vanish before them?
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Slavery (1835). Chapter I. Property

No man should part with his individuality and aim to become another.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in The Christian Examiner (September 1829). Remarks on Associations

[S]elf-culture must vary with the individual.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

The only distinctions which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, or incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking the truth.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community (1840). Lecture II (delivered in Boston MA; 16 January 1840)

Variety of action, corresponding to the variety of human powers, and fitted to develop all, is the most important element of human civilization.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community (1840). Lecture I (delivered in Boston MA; 9 January 1840)

I will take no man's liberty of judgment from him, neither shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man ... I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me. And what measure I mete to others, I expect from them again.
~ William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants, a safe way to Salvation (1637).

Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., The Heart Is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality (1999).

It is not Scripture that creates hostility to homosexuality, but rather hostility to homosexuality that prompts certain Christians to retain a few passages from an otherwise discarded law code. The problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages, but rather how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., The Courage to Love (1982).

The challenge today is to seek a unity that celebrates diversity, to unite the particular with the universal, to recognize the need for roots while insisting that the point of roots is to put forth branches.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches (1993).

From the time Elizabeth first approached the National Guard, you knew this was a major confrontation between the governor and the federal government. She became a symbol for the Little Rock crisis.
~ Will Counts, quoted in The Associated Press (8 October 2001). Photographer Will Counts dies of cancer

Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.
~ William Cowper, in Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1805 edition). The Negro's Complaint (written in 1788).

For 'twas the self-same Power Divine
Taught you to sing, and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Nightingale and Glow-Worm (written in 1780)

The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book I. The Sofa

Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book II. The Time-Piece

What one cannot, another can.
~ Sir William Davenant

Racism is cruel and unjust. It cuts deep and lingers long in individual and community memories. And it is not a thing of the past -- it persists throughout the world. ... We all have a duty to do what we can to turn this around.
~ Sir William Patrick Deane, A project of "The Chief Executive Officers of education systems across Australia" (October 2000). Racism. No way!

We must understand variation.
~ W. Edwards Deming

The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.
~ William Orville Douglas, The Mike Wallace Interview (11 May 1958).

The music selected by one bureaucrat may be as offensive to some as it is soothing to others.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), Public Utilities Comm'n v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451 (1952)

[G]reat as is the physical unlikeness of the various races of men their likenesses are greater, and upon this rests the whole scientific doctrine of Human Brotherhood.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, from The American Negro Academy Occasional Papers, No.2. Washington, D.C. (1897). The Conservation of Races

Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here at the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The Forethought

I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying, through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, in The Independent, Volume 57 (6 October 1904).

They don't really rule; they just thinks they rule. They just got things -- heavy, dead things. We black folks is got the spirit.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911). Five: Zora

My view is that you cannot close your mind and say I don't want to listen to this or that. Because if you can't appreciate the bad for being bad, you can't appreciate the good. If you turn a deaf ear to everything but one style, pretty soon it's not going to work out.
~ Billy Eckstine, Interview (1954).

Attending there let us absorb the cultures of nations
And dissolve into our judgement all their codes.
Then, being clogged, with a natural hesitation
(People are continually asking one the way out),
Let us stand here and admit that we have no road.
~ William Empson, first published in Poetica (January 1932). Homage to the British Museum

[T]hey will endure. They are better than we are. Stronger than we are. Their vices are vices aped from white men or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion -- not laziness: evasion: of what white men had set them to, not for their aggrandizement or even comfort but his own.
~ William Faulkner, from Go Down, Moses (1942). The Bear

Unity or oneness is a property of being. If anything is, it is one and not many.
~ William Fleming, The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral, and Metaphysical (1856).

Some tolerance of dissent has characterized many human societies and organizations down through the ages. But the deliberate and systematic attempt to make life livable for dissenters is a product of the modern world and the open society.
~ John William Gardner, Self-Renewal: The Individ­ual and the Innovative Society (1963).

Countless the various species of mankind,
Countless the shades which sep'rate mind from mind;
No general object of desire is known,
Each has his will, and each pursues his own.
~ William Gifford, Translation of Persius (1821).

The digital divide threatens to deny minority students, our professors and our institutions the competitive skills they need to overcome the remaining vestiges imposed by race and economic segregation in America.
~ William Gray III, The Associated Press (27 February 2002). Ga. Sen. Wants Black Colleges Grants

[N]o distinction is 'tween man and man,
But as his virtues add to him a glory,
Or vices cloud him.
~ William Habington, The Queene of Arragon (1640). iii, i

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
~ William Hazlitt, in The Atlas (31 January 1830). The Spirit of Controversy

God knows the pioneer days were cruel enough to the Indian and the other non-white groups competing in what was essentially a white man's world. There is no need to transfuse today's social diseases into the simpler bloodstream of yesterday. The very idea of depicting the Indian or black man of frontier times as the same Indian or black man who lives today is obscene.
~ Will Henry (Henry Wilson Allen), in Will Henry's West (1984).

I get a kick out of being an outsider constantly. It allows me to be creative. I don't like anything in the mainstream and they don't like me.
~ Bill Hicks, in the Chicago Sun Times (25 June 1993).

The shapes and colours of plants, flowers, leaves, the paintings in butterflies wings, shells, etc. seem of little other intended use, than that of entertaining the eye with the pleasure of variety.
~ William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty (1753). Chapter II: Of Variety

Men boast of their tolerance, who should be ashamed of their indifference.
~ William Henry Houghton

But the fact is, my dear friend, that bigotry is never consistent, except that it is always narrow, always ungracious, and always, under plea of uniting God's people, scattering them one from another, and rendering them weak as water.
~ William Howitt, Letter to Lucretia Mott (27 June 1840).

The Lord never made two leaves alike, nor two people alike.
~ William Morris (W.M.) Hunt, from Talks about Art (1878).

Human beings are born unequal and the only persons who have a right to govern their neighbours are those who are competent to do so.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931).

Dialogue seems to be one of the ways in which it is possible to welcome the diversity of voices that people bring to the table -- and move to a new level of collective insight.
~ William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (1999).

Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdain -- under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
~ William James, Address Delivered at a Meeting of the Association of American Alumni at Radcliff College (7 November 1907). The Social Value of the College-Bred

Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now seem to imagine it to possess.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). Preface

There is very little difference between one man and another, but what little there is, is very important.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). The Gospel of Relaxation

[A]ll classes of society are trade-unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.
~ William (W.) Stanley Jevons, The State In Relation To Labour (1882). Preface

Urge no man to see as yourself, as it is quite possible you may see differently when you awake in the morning. It is wiser to let the matter rest without argument. No man is absolutely convinced by that. It is but blowing your breath against the whirlwind.
~ William Q. Judge, The Path (August 1886). Musings On The True Theosophist's Path

Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.
~ Billie Jean King (on tennis's Battle of the Sexes), Houston TX (20 September 1973)

They're very different personalities. Venus is much more to herself now, Serena is much more gregarious, likes to socialize more. ... Serena is Hollywood.
~ Billie Jean King (on the Williams sisters), The Associated Press (23 August 2002). Serena Williams No. 1 in her family _ and world

But we must erase the idea that South Africans have been the inventors of apartheid. It has existed all over the world, including here in the United States -- I reject what I often hear, likening what happened in South Africa to the Holocaust. We never had genocide. We have not invented social discrimination and racism.
~ Frederik Willem (F.W.) de Klerk, Speech at Kennedy School of Government's ARCO Forum, Harvard College (7 February 2001).

Everybody is sitting around saying, "Well, jeez, we need somebody to solve this problem of bias." That somebody is us. We all have to try to figure out a better way of getting along.
~ Wilma Mankiller

Let's raise our dribble glasses. Here's to us,
morose at dances, and giggly in committee.
~ William Matthews, from Foreseeable Futures (1987). Fellow Oddballs

Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949).

Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.
~ Willie Howard Mays Jr.

[C]ivility does not require that I adopt your manners, your creed, or your costume. It does demand the empathic effort to understand you and your ways as you understand them yourself. Civility, like equality, is the sameness of spirit that does not require us to deny our differences. In fact, when civility is strongest, we can argue with some heat.
~ Wilson Carey McWilliams, in Worldview, 31 (March 1988). The Wearing of Orange

The true community of the future will be formed for livelihood and the development of all human capacities, and consequently would avail itself of the varieties of temperament caused by differences of surrounding which differentiate the races and families of mankind.
~ William Morris, in Commonweal (1886).

[R]eligious insults are considered acceptable even by those who decry slurs about race, ethnicity, and gender. Religious people seem to deserve such treatment.
~ William Murchison, Reclaiming Morality in America (1994).

Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.
~ William Osler, Address, Centennial Celebration of the New Haven Medical Society, New Haven CT (6 January 1903). On the Educational Value of the Medical Society

Every species of intolerance which enjoins suppression and silence, and every species of persecution which enforces such injunctions, is adverse to the progress of truth.
~ William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). Book VI. Chapter X: Of Religious Establishments, and of Toleration

Diversity without unity makes about as much sense as dishing up flour, sugar, water, eggs, shortening, and baking powder on a plate and calling it a cake.
~ C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (December 1996).

Give 'em a touch of the various ... and everybody in the game will have chips added to their stack by the play.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), The Heart of the West (1904). Cupid a La Carte

The difference between actually very serious and actually very funny is actually very thin.
~ William Powers, Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream (2010).

Our judges will not continue to represent the diverse face of America if only the well-to-do or the mediocre are willing to become judges.
~ William H. Rehnquist (in his annual report on the U.S. judiciary), CBS News (1 January 2003). Rehnquist's Request

We was raised not to see color, not to know it. They were human beings and friends and we all worked together, sang together, and loved each other. That's the way it was in those days.
~ Billy Lee Riley, Interview in Phoenix New Times (19 July 2001). Life of Riley

My father was one eighth Cherokee and my mother one fourth Cherokee, which I figure makes me about an eighth cigar-store Injun.
~ Will Rogers

Old Hollywood is just like a desert water in Africa. Hang around long enough and every kind of animal in the world will drift in for refreshments.
~ Will Rogers

The Lord so constituted everybody that no matter what color you are you require the same amount of nourishment.
~ Will Rogers

It is possible to be different and still be all right. There can be two -- or more -- answers to the same question, and all can be right.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetite they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act II, scene ii

Alas! 'tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 110

Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,
To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act II, scene i

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act III, scene ii

You and I, gentle reader, may differ in many of our notions; but if we do not differ, how shall we expect to satisfy either mind, and by what process should we discover truth?
~ William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside (1853).

I won't kid you. It's stressful to live in a pluralistic community.
~ William Sinkford, The Associated Press (13 September 2001).

I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role that black men should play in their lives with their children and in their lives with their women.
~ Will Smith, ABC TV "Primetime" (13 December 2001). Taking on Ali: The Fight of Will Smith's Life

[T]he relegation of an individual to a type, or to several types, can never do justice to the ineffable particularity of his individuality.
~ William Stern (Wilhelm Louis Stern), quoted in The Intelligence Men (1985).

Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together.
~ William Turner, The Rescuing of the Romish Fox (1545).

[Y]ou and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Volume I. Chapter XVI: More Storms in the Puddle

All talents, all faculties, whether from nature or education, whether of mind or muscle, are here equally appreciated if they are spontaneosly afforded and improved, and if they are necessary to keep up the common mass of happiness.
~ William Thompson, Appeal of One-half of the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery (1825).

Either the spirit of the abolitionists, of Lincoln and of Lovejoy, must be revived and we must come to treat the Negro on a plane of absolute political and social equality, or Vardaman and Tillman will soon have transferred the race war to the North. ... Yet who realizes the seriousness of the situation, and what large and powerful body of citizens is ready to come to their aid?
~ William English Walling (on the 1908 race riots at Springfield, Illinois), in The Independent (3 September 1908). Race War in the North

Why should our love from hence, and our affections, grow cold and dead one towards another? Why should we not peaceably bear one with another till our sights grow better, and our light increase?
~ William Walwyn, Toleration justified and persecution condemned (29 January 1646).

I think he did what he did to promote his career, but I never heard him using any negative words or maybe statements about black people in general. He never did that. I don't believe he was a racist at heart. And when the times changed, he changed.
~ Essie Mae Washington-Williams (of her father), CBS TV "60 Minutes II" (17 December 2003). Essie Mae On Strom Thurmond

It is one of the noteworthy achievements of Islam that it has united in a great society men of different races and social traditions.
~ William Montgomery Watt, Islam and the Integration of Society (1961).

The moral of my tale is this,
Variety's the soul of bliss;
But such variety alone
As makes our home the more our own.
~ William Whitehead, Variety: A Tale for Married People (1776)

I, you know, am all over the place -- every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent. I could not make, like Hitchcock did, one Hitchcock picture after another. ... I wanted to do a Hitchcock picture, so I did "Witness for the Prosecution," then I was bored with it, so I moved on.
~ Billy Wilder, in Conversations With Wilder (1999).

The question is: Should we not all respect and honor one's differences? The gravamen of the "question" invariably is that differences of race, ethnicity and sexuality all should be "respected" and "honored." I disagree. Why should respect and honor accrue to accidents of birth? Given that they are accidents, what, precisely, is there to honor? Surely, respect is owed to, and honor should flow to individuals, for their attainments of intellectual or moral excellence, not merely because of any membership in any group.
~ George F. Will

I think it is infuriating for people with heart to see discrimination against any segment of society. I think that the more heterosexuals stand up with the gay movement, the stronger the fight against those who would oppress the gay community will be.
~ Andrew Williams, The Advocate (26 July 1994). Twins Peak Andy William's Musical Nephews Are All Grown Up -- And One Is Gay

They keep me out of a hotel where loafers are admitted without question, so long as they're white. Then a professor or a lawyer or a doctor invites me up to his house. It's a great, sad little world.
~ Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams

Demographers used to say America was a melting pot. Now they describe the country as a salad bowl in which people retain their ethnic and racial identity.
~ Juan Williams, Speech at the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources National Conference (October 2000).

In the matter of prejudice ... we are all the same. Goddess and demon, human and monster: none of us understand difference, but at least some of us make the effort to try.
~ Liz Williams, Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (2005).

I don't think things have changed. I just think they're more camouflaged and covered up. If things had changed, when I was walking down those steps that guy wouldn't have called me nigger.
~ Richard Williams

If we continue to try to solve (nutritional) problems on the basis of the average man, we will be continuously in a muddle. Such a man does not exist.
~ Roger J. Williams, Ph.D., D.Sc.

The existence in every human being of a vast array of attributes which are potentially measurable (whether by present methods or not), and often uncorrelated mathematically, makes quite tenable the hypothesis that practically every human being is a deviate in some respects.
~ Roger J. Williams, Ph.D., D.Sc., Biochemical Individuality (1956).

The ultimate goal of our efforts is social welfare. This is accomplished when the physical and social environment is adjusted for the maximum development of every individual. Since, as science demonstrates, people show wide variability in every respect, the environment which is suitable for one will not be suitable for all. Society must accommodate itself to individual needs.
~ Roger J. Williams, Ph.D., D.Sc., The Human Frontier (1946).

Understanding and tolerance lay a foundation upon which love can grow.
~ Terrie Williams, A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues (November 5, 2002).

Nobody should have to clean up anybody else's mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). The Catastrophe of Success

The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They're one hundred times one thousand. You're one times one!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene Seven

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

If I'd lived prior to the 1980s, it would have been different, because I would have been playing to prove African Americans are equal. Now, I don't necessarily feel I have to play for black people, because obviously they're doing everything in all sports. If I can go out there and play for myself and not feel I have to stand for something other than what I want to do, that's good.
~ Venus Williams, USA Weekend Magazine (April 1998).

Civility is fragile under the best of circumstances and can unravel overnight. Civility is in an even more precarious state in multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-religious societies. One doesn't have to turn to history's ample evidence of that fact; he need only look at todays Rwanda, Bosnia and Ireland for confirmation. Americans are stacking piles of combustible societal kindling -- in the form of quotas, false reporting and implicit sanctioning of interracial crimes, waiting to be set ablaze by racial arsonists. We'd better do something about it while we can.
~ Walter E. Williams, (1996).

I ... wanted to let all the other misfits out there know that being a misfit is exactly what you need to be to win in this world.
~ Wendy Williams, Wendy's Got the Heat (2003). Introduction: Futuristic Vision

Nature's noblemen are everywhere, in town and out of town, gloved and rough-handed, rich and poor. Prejudice against a lord because he is a lord, is losing the chance of finding a good fellow, as much as prejudice against a ploughman because he is a ploughman.
~ Nathaniel Parker (N.P.) Willis

What I wanta know is, if we're so oversexed, how come we're still a minority?
~ Clerow "Flip" Wilson, (c. 1967)

At present the gap between the sane man and the maniac is very small indeed. As William James rightly understood, the "hour" can strike for any of us. Remove a few of the walls of illusion and the sane man becomes insane.
~ Colin Henry Wilson, Introduction to the New Existentialism (1966). Chapter Six: The Power of the Spectre

Every species lives a life unique to itself, and every species dies a different way.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, The Diversity of Life (1992). Chapter Eleven. The Life and Death of Species

Postmodernism refuses to privilege any one perspective, and recognizes only difference, never inequality, only fragments, never conflict.
~ Elizabeth Wilson, from Hallucinations: Life in the Postmodern City (1988).

[It goes] back to three little black girls from Detroit, Michigan, who dared to dream in 1959, when black people were not even considered citizens. We helped change that. Now, that's not a small feat. And I was part of that.
~ Mary Wilson, ABC News "20/20 Downtown" (April 2000). Where Did Their Love Go?: Mary Wilson Reveals Her History of The Supremes

Here's a health to the lass with the merry black eyes!
Here's a health to the lad with the blue ones!
~ William Winter, from English Rambles: And Other Fugitive Pieces, in Prose and Verse (1883). Wanderers: Blue Eyes and Black

If we can get enough of us to assume that responsibility to heed the voices of our better nature instead of those cynics who say it can't be done then we have validated the purpose of our work and the vision of this institute.
~ William Winter, Speech at the announcement of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, University of Mississippi. Old Capitol Building, Jackson, MS (20 February 2003).

The fault line of race is a paramount factor in keeping us from realizing our potential as a state and as a nation. The elimination of this line is what I think this institute is about. ... Our task in the final analysis is to cause more of us to look in the mirror.
~ William Winter, Speech at the announcement of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, University of Mississippi. Old Capitol Building, Jackson, MS (20 February 2003).