1026 – “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

-Matthew Kelly [See Source Notes for information on misattribution]

789 – “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

–Sirius Black in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

645 – “I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit.”

–Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States of America

Context: Written in a letter where Grant explains the situation regarding his issuing of General Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from his military district. He says he issued the order when upset after being  reprimanded over reports that some people, who happened to be Jewish, were accused of crossing the Union lines, in defiance of an earlier order, to sell black market goods, specifically cotton. He says that he regrets the order, and that he did not defend it then, and would not defend it now. For full context, the full letter can be read online through the link in the source.

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642 – “To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier on lose much of their lustre; judged by the standards of today, there is probably no illustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet the test at all points.”

–Mark Twain

433 – “History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.”

–César Chávez

340 – “Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

–Robert H Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

265 – “You don’t know me at all. What you “know” is only what I choose to show you, so quit judging me based on what you see. There’s more to whatever is the real me.”

–anonymous

224 – “Chan eil breth le nochd; beairteach cridhe dh’fhaodadh a bhith fo bochd còta.”

“Do not judge by appearances; a rich heart may be under a poor coat.”

–Scottish Proverb