Go Set a Watchman Quotes

“Don’t you study about other folks’s business till you take care of your own.”

“I was taught never to take advantage of anyone who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody, not just Negroes.”

“As a general rule, most women, before they’ve got ‘em, present to their men smiling, agreeing faces. They hide their thoughts. You now, when you’re feeling hateful, honey, you are hateful.”

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

“Remember this also: it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”

“She went to him. ‘Atticus,’ she said. ‘I’m—’ ‘You may be sorry, but I’m proud of you.’ She looked up and saw her father beaming at her. ‘What?’ ‘I said I’m proud of you.’ ‘I don’t understand you. I don’t understand men at all and I never will.’ ‘Well, I certainly hoped a daughter of mine’d hold her ground for what she thinks is right—stand up to me first of all.‘”

“As you say, Jean Louise, there’s only one thing higher than the Court in this country, and that’s the Constitution.”

“The only remedy for this is not to let it beat you.”

“The only thing I’m afraid of about this country is that its government will someday become so monstrous that the smallest person in it will be trampled underfoot, and then it wouldn’t be worth living in.”

“I learned nothing from you except how to be suspicious. I didn’t know what hate was until I lived among you and saw you hating every day.”

“She must now go into a word of femininity, a world she despised, could not comprehend nor defend herself against, a world that did not want her.”

“You deny them hope. Any man in this world, Atticus, any man who has a head and arms and legs, was born with hope in his heart. You won’t find that in the Constitution, I picked that up in church somewhere. They are simple people, most of them, but that doesn’t make them subhuman.”

“What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions? He doesn’t give. He stays rigid. Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.”

“I despise you and everything you stand for.”

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

“She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life, was the love of her father. She never questioned it, never thought about it, never even realized that before she made any decision of importance the reflex, ‘What would Atticus do?’ passed through her unconscious; she never realized what made her dig in her feet and stand firm whenever she did was her father; that whatever was decent and of good report in her character was put there by her father; she did not know that she worshiped him.”

“I just don’t like my world disturbed without some warning.”

“Jean Louise, I’ve had to scratch since I was a kid for the things you and Jem took for granted. I’ve never had some of the things you take for granted and I never will. All I have to fall back on is myself.”

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”